Nobles, Orphans, Street rats and Scholars
by Moxie
Summary: We all know that Voldemort is the Heir of Slytherin... or is he? What if there were other heirs, to all the houses? What if they were thrown into a fray of makebelieve from real, even in the wizarding world?
1. Around the World

Author's Note: Before reading this, bear in mind, **_You MUST forget everything you learned about the Heir of Slytherin in book two._** It won't make any sense, otherwise. Happy reading, and don't forget to review!

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Hogwarts, school of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

Harry Potter woke up with the morning sun on his face. Arising from his soft bed with the scarlet covers, he put his bare feet on the floor and walked to the window.

Something is going to happen today, he thought wistfully as he leaned on the rough stone wall around the window. Something unusual. I just know it. Walking away from the window, he sat back on his bed, still warm from his little nest he had slept in the night before. In the bed next to him, Ron Weasley turned around and groaned in his sleep. Not that life here is ever usual in the first place, he thought twistedly as he reached for his school robes.

***

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Somewhere in the alleys of London...

Gabriel Gryffindor moaned as she put a hand to her badly scratched and bruised side. It had been another incredibly close encounter with the British police, and she had to climb a barbed wire fence to escape justice, and she had made it only by throwing herself over the sharp part of the fence, and had fallen on her side, bruising it.

"I'll say, Lucidity, that was a danged close call ya' had there. 'f I say it meself."

Gabriel looked up at her friend, Nepe, and gave her a sardonic smile. Lucidity was her 'street name' the one everyone knew her by. Unlike most of the people in the gang of street 'mice' that she was in, Gabriel knew her real name. Most, like Nepe, knew only the titles that the thief-lord gave. 

"Did you nick it?" Nepe asked her blue eyes piercing Gabriel's brown ones. Gabriel smiled at her friend's use of crude street slang.

"Yes, I got the jewelry, amazingly, after all that mess back there." Gabriel put her hand in her pocket and withdrew the large diamond amulet from her tattered street clothes. Nepe clapped her hands in a happy display, her smile flashing against her dark, greasy skin.

"That's great, Lucy! Now, maybe we'll get promoted to thief-assistants! Let's go!" She hopped up and sprinted down the length of the alley, soiled newspapers and all sorts of trash scattering about in her wake. 

Gabriel pressed a hand to her forehead, and slowly got up off the ground, wary of her wounds. Her stomach rumbled, and Gabriel firmly told it to stop. There was nothing she could do about it. Shaking out her braid, originally blond, but having so much dirt, sweat and grease in it, was almost now a limp, gray color. It whacked against her back pitifully, like a grimy flag of defeat. 

She followed Nepe. 

***

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A mansion, north of Dublin...

Hayley Hufflepuff sat in her bedroom, sweating and almost bored to tears. In the heat of the summer, her parents insisted on her wearing a very heavy deep purple dress, and sit inside.

"It's not ladylike to go around frolicking like a captive lambkin!" Her parents had yelled at her many times. "I don't care how hot it is! Return to your needlework!"

Hayley looked at her small cross-stitch and sighed. It was supposed to be a regal picture of an angel, floating around in space, showing whoever looked at it the heavenly light. She had only finished the first four white stitches on the bottom of the angel's dress. She looked at the children outside, playing tag, leapfrog, and other multitudes of games without her. Her eyes began to tear as she looked at one little girl, looking no older than her tackling a boy. It just wasn't fair. She slammed her needlework onto the ground, the threads and scissors flying about and striking the walls.

"Hayley, that doesn't sound like needlepoint!" her mother called from somewhere else in the mansion.

"Sorry, Mother!" Hayley yelled back. But she didn't pick up the sewing kit. Instead she ripped off her heavy velvet gown and underdressings, and tore into her closet, looking for some thing plain to wear. The only thing suitable thing there was a yellow muslin dress, with lace trimmings. That's easy to fix, thought Hayley with a sadistic grin as she looked at the lace. She found her scissors by one of the chairs in her room, and surgically removed the exorbant Indian lace. Pulling it on over her head, she looked at herself in the mirror. Green eyes and copper colored hair. The hair's too done up. Yanking out pins left and right, she found that her hair came down wavy, and almost attractive looking against the yellow. Taking a spare coil of rope from her bed, she tied it to the bedpost and swung herself out the window to join the other children.

This was the first time she had deliberately disobeyed her parents.

***

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Chaplain street, Sydney....

Robert Ravenclaw stared out the window as his history teacher, Mrs. Stevensine, rambled on about an American president named George Washington, or something like that. Life here was so dreadfully boring. It was all so humdrum, he couldn't stand it. Not to mention, it was hot as....

"Mr. Ravenclaw!" Robert nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned around to meet the dark brown eyes of his teacher, and they did not look pleased. Students around him tittered at his sudden suppressed look, and Robert felt his ears go red.

"Perhaps you would like to tell us what number president Mr. Washington was, humm?" Robert was shocked at how stupidly easy the question was. Didn't everybody know that?

"George Washington," he started smoothly, fiddling with the eraser of his pencil smugly, almost, as he answered, "was the first president of the United States of America." He looked defiantly at his teacher as if to say, 'beat that'. Mrs. Stevensine looked sternly back.

"Very good, Mr. Ravenclaw. But need I remind you, that even if you do know about American history, you must pay attention. Now class, as we move on to his early years..." Robert tuned her out again. Lessons were an easy matter to him; he was always angering his teachers by not paying any sort of attention, and then knowing the right answer. He was always a puzzle to them, he annoyed them. How could a student that paid so little attention know so much? Normally, the response would be some sort of punishment, but for what? He knew the lecture, seemingly before it started. So, he just went on his way, not doing much, it seemed. Robert sighed, contemplating this as he looked at the distorted reflection that the window by his seat gave to him. Eyes of a deep cornflower blue and some red hair were plastered there with lips in a tight, bored expression. 

How much longer was left in class?

***

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St. Samuel's home for orphanedged girls, New York...

Sarah Slytherin buried her nose further in her book, trying to ignore Sister Elizabeth's words. 

"You act like royalty! Ignoring everybody, it's as if you're living a mental life that holds you above the rest of the world! Are you listening, young lady? You don't even..." She went trailing on and on and on, or so it seemed to Sarah.

"Do you ever shut up?" muttered Sarah under her breath as she tried again to immerse herself in the wonderful world of Alice and Wonderland again, just trying to keep to herself, be left alone...Though Sister Elizabeth's shrill voice wouldn't allow it.

"I have your best interests at heart, and your ways make you no friends with the other girls!" Sarah winced as her voice soared in and out of audible range. "Even though I don't know why I even bother with you at all, you're not even giving me the honor of seeing your face when I speak to you! Look at me!" She yanked the book out of Sarah's tight grip. Sarah squealed in anger and lunged for it back.

"Give me my book back you, you..." Sarah had to bite her tongue hard to keep from swearing. She wasn't really a religious person, but she was certain that swearing at nuns wasn't exactly kosher with God.

"You need to go outside for a while. Go get some fresh air and talk with the other girls. I'm not giving you this back until you do. For whatever reason your parents brought you here..."

Sarah clenched her fists in the sheets of her bed. "They didn't want me, so shut up, shut up, shut up......" It was true. Her family couldn't afford her anymore, or so they said. Sarah knew it was a lie. It made her eyes tear, so she averted her energy back to sullen anger, her jet-black curls wavering with her every move. "Give me back my book!" she wailed again.

"Not until you go outside. Go on." Sarah got up with a resigned sigh and gave Sister Elizabeth a piercing stare, her gray eyes full of hatred, and followed her out.

She had another book in her pocket.

*** 

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Hogwarts, school of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

Harry Potter yawned as he took a morning stroll down the hallways of his school. It was very early, not even six yet. He stopped to admire a fine painting done of Godric Gryffindor, when he heard a familiar, drawling voice behind him.

"'Morning, Potter," the voice said lazily. Harry whipped around to find a person he was not exactly too intent on seeing this early in the morning: Draco Malfoy.

"What do you want?" he snapped at Malfoy, who took another bite of the banana he was eating and chewed carefully and swallowed before answering, as if they were having a civil talk.

"Did I say I wanted anything?" He peeled the banana down farther and looked at Harry with an annoying, almost a smirk on his face. "I was just out walking. Fancy seeing you out this early in the morning, Potter. I'm suprised."

Harry clenched his teeth. "It's way too early for your mind games, Malfoy. I'm not in the mood." Malfoy raised his eyebrows, and took a bite out of the banana while looking at him with something like amusement.

"Too early, eh?" he asked when he'd swallowed. "It's almost six. That's not early, that's actually rather late, by my standards."

"By your standards, not mine. And how many people in their right minds would go by your standards?" Malfoy finished the banana, and was now holding the peel in his left hand, twirling it like some kind of flag.

"Tisk-tisk. It seems like you should go back to bed, Potter. You're in a more pleasant mood when you get enough sleep." He threw the banana peel into the nearest garbage can, and walked down the hall, shoes echoing against the tile floor. Harry watched him leave.

"Mental note to self," he said quietly when he was sure Malfoy was out of earshot. "The earlier it gets, the calmer Malfoy gets. He also gets that much more annoying as well." Harry walked on, in the opposite direction from Malfoy.

***

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Back in the alleys of London...

Gabriel couldn't see Nepe's rush to get to the Thief-Lord. In fact, if she went the rest of her life without seeing the Lord again, it would be all the same to her. But it wasn't her choice.

"Come on Lucidity! I want to get there before they close the place!!" Gabriel groaned in her throat and quickened her pace to a weak trot to keep up with Nepe.

"Nepe, I don't see the rush at all. The Thief-Lord doesn't close the doors to her place until around eleven at night, and it's only six in the morning!!" But Nepe refused to slow down or stop for anything.

"She don't like visitors after twelve, and you know it!" said Nepe in a very determined tone. Gabriel sighed. She knew that there was nothing she could do. Nepe was a very stubborn person, and once she got her mind set on something, that was it.

They walked around trashcans, through a filthy dump, and any number of alleys that Gabriel knew like that back of her hand, after two years on the street. Finally, they reached the laundry chute that led up into the Lord's domain; Nepe slowed down and gulped as she looked up the metal chute.

"You go first, Lucy." she said in a very quiet, demure voice. Her small body began to shake with fear in spite of herself. Gabriel growled, and climbed up the chute. It wasn't an easy climb--she almost fell down four times. Finally, she reached the top, sweating and red-faced.

The Thief-Lord's domain wasn't really much to look at, to normal people who lived in plain, ordinary houses. It had a couple of half-empty beanbags, a stool missing one leg, a very flat mattress with a singular cover on it. But it seemed a bower of luxury to the two street mice, after sleeping on pavement.

"Who's there?" asked a rough female voice from another room. Nepe dropped to her knees in respect, but Gabriel/Lucidity was too proud to do so. 

"It's us, Nepe and Lucidity. We've brought you some stuff," Nepe answered with utmost respect. Gabriel just rolled her eyes into the back of her head.

"Bring it here." Nepe and Gabriel walked into the other room, the treasure room. It was heaped full of golds, silvers, copper, brass, and all sorts of other precious metals and jewels. Gabriel thought it was ridiculous, having all this gold just to look at. Shouldn't they get to actually spend it on something?

The Thief-lord was a lanky nineteen-year-old, with dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. She growled briefly at her two subjects before answering. This made Nepe cower, but Gabriel just stood there, looking incredibly bored at the scene. Gabriel flipped her the diamond amulet.

"Well?" Gabriel asked, sounding impatiently sleepy. The Thief-Lord looked up at her with a quelling look to be quiet, but Gabriel ignored the look. The Thief-Lord grunted.

"I think this is..." CRASH!! All three girls whipped around to see the police, holding them at gunpoint. Nepe cowered further, the Thief-Lord looked down, but Gabriel flung her arms back, and they hit a ruby encrusted staff. 

"If you're going to take me, you're not going to get me without a fight." she mumbled to herself as she gripped the staff with both hands. She knew it was hopeless, but they would get her either way....They'd remember her, at least! She charged, but was intercepted by a red light all around her body. Dropping her staff, she stared. So did everyone else. Then, she disappeared... 

***

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A mansion, north of Dublin...

"I can't remember when I was ever so ashamed of you, Hayley!" her mother's voice screeched in her ear, making Hayley wince. After twenty-five minutes of complete freedom, her parents had caught her playing freeze tag with the other children.

"Playing with those common urchins, I don't know what has gotten into you, young lady!" her father looked straight ahead, seeming like he was too ashamed to look at her at all. It filled Hayley's brain with anger at herself, but her heart felt like it was going to burst. Those twenty- five minutes were the best of her life. Fighting a sudden rush of anger, she broke out of her mother's tight hold on her yellow dress.

"Let go of me! Playing with those common 'urchins', as you call them, hasn't hurt me in the least! I don't see what business it is of yours anyway!" She knew she had gone too far when her father looked down into her green eyes with something like a mixture of shock and anger on his face.

"Make no mistake, Hayley Samantha! You're going to get it when you get home, and that's final!" He grabbed her arm and dragged her off towards the mansion.

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Thirty minutes later....

Hayley couldn't remember when she had been more miserable in her short life. The twenty minutes of being yelled at was bad enough, now she had to scrub the entire kitchen floor. Life was so unfair.

"I hate them," Hayley said viciously as she dunked her scrubbing brush into the warm, soapy water. "I hate my parents." She pulled out the brush so violently that she splashed the water all over.

"Hayley?" her mother called her from downstairs. Hayley had to bite her lip to try to keep from snapping or sneering at her mother. She failed.

"What?" she snapped loudly. Her face began to burn with anger, and her wavy copper colored hair stuck to her face with the moisture there.

"Come down to lunch," her mother had a demure, finely toned voice that seemed as if she didn't hear the angry, snapping words from her daughter. That only made Hayley angrier. 

"No! I'm not hungry!" This was very unlike Hayley, she normally had a lot of patience to work with, and she almost never snapped at people, especially her family. But, she thought that her patience had all evaporated with her good mood back down with the children playing games. She slammed her brush back into the water, sloshing water everywhere, getting Hayley all wet. But, she didn't mind. Instead, Hayley Hufflepuff went over to the window, where a breeze passed through. Suddenly, she felt very strange. She looked down at her feet, and saw that she was enveloped in a yellowish light. She wanted to scream, but there was no time to. She evaporated into thin air.

***

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Chaplain street, Sydney...

Robert yawned as his English teacher droned on about verbs. They were in eighth grade, for heaven's sake. Shouldn't they already know this? The day had gone by like all other days before it, and how all other days after it. He basically slept through History, Spanish, Math, and now English. He was looking forward to next hour, Gym, when he could run and shout with the other children.

"Mr. Ravenclaw!" Robert groaned. Not again. "Give me an example of verbs of being." Robert looked up lazily at his teacher, Mr. Lerple. Would the teachers ever get enough of picking on him? The children turned to stare, and Robert sighed impatiently.

"A verb of being," he said, drumming his fingers on his desk as he spoke slowly and clearly, "would be something like: is, are, and were." Mr. Lerple's white eyebrows furrowed in an irritated look. Robert met the gaze steadily, impudently, almost.

"Very good. Perhaps I could speak to you after class." he turned back to the board and kept on droning. Robert sighed and watched the clouds float by out the window. 

"I wonder what he wants," Robert said to himself slowly. He looked up at the clock. It read that it was eleven-fifty-two. That meant, as Robert added up the minutes in his head, that there were about twenty-eight minutes until class was over. Robert groaned and watched the second hand tick.

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Twenty-eight minutes later...

Robert picked up his materials, and headed over to Mr. Lerple's desk. His cheeks puffed out in an exasperated sigh: he hoped this wouldn't make him late for Gym. Mr. Lerple was grading tests, and Robert cleared his throat to get his attention. Mr. Lerple looked up.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, Mr. Ravenclaw. I wanted to speak to you." Robert shifted his weight from one foot to another. He wished that Mr. Lerple would hurry up. Mr. Lerple put down his red grading pen and folded his hands on his desk before speaking.

"The teachers in the eighth grade curriculum have noticed that you seem to be very bored and get restless during class." Robert looked at him impatiently. "So, we have decided to move you up to the ninth grade." The words hit Robert like a brick to the stomach.

"Skip a grade?" Robert repeated like a moron. "But, I don't think that's necessary...." Mr. Lerple gave him a sad smile.

"We think so. Robert, you don't do anything in class, and you're passing with flying colors. Such a brain is a gift, and you're wasting it here." Robert's mouth went dry. His legs also started to feel funny. He looked down, and saw a funny looking blue aura was creeping up his legs. 

"Umm, Mr. Lerple..." Mr. Lerple looked up, a bit aggravated, but Robert was already gone, in a brilliant flash of blue light.

***

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St. Samuel's orphanedge for girls, New York...

Sarah climbed a tall elm tree that was on the orphanage grounds. She had obeyed Sister Elizabeth's orders and talked with the other girls for a while. They accepted her, but seeing as all they wanted to talk about were fashions and guys, and after an hour of their company, Sarah was sure she was interested in neither. Hoisting herself up into the highest branches of the tree, she looked around. It was a perfect view of the orphanage, and all of the occupants. Settling herself in a tangle of branches that served as a chair, Sarah Slytherin took out her book, The adventures of Tom Sawyer, and started to read, until she was interrupted.

"Miss Slytherin! You do not have permission to be climbing trees like a monkey! Come down here this instant!" Sarah shut her book with an irritated snap. Why wouldn't these people leave her alone? She shot her eyes down to come face to face with Sister Elizabeth again.

"Go away!" she yelled. "I'm not bothering you, or anybody else! I want to be left alone!" She met the angry look on Sister Elizabeth's face with one of her own.

"You are the most difficult child that lives here!" Sister Elizabeth shouted back up into the leaves of the elm. "It is not my job to run after you!" Sarah let her lips turn up into a cruel sort of smile, and looked down.

"Then why do you?" She asked innocently, sending her most sugar coated voice down with the message. "You don't have to. I can take care of myself, you know. I'm almost fifteen." This made Sister Elizabeth sputter with anger. Sarah just smiled sadistically and returned to her book. She wasn't exactly an evil child, she just liked to be left alone, to think. It's rather hard to think for yourself when fifteen different people are breathing down your back, was her motto. Sarah would be the first to admit that she probably wasn't exactly the best people person, but she loved plants and animals. From down the tree, Sister Elizabeth screamed. 

"AHHH!" she turned tail and fled helter-skelter back to the orphanage. Sarah frowned a bit. That was certainly a change of events. What was wrong? By chance, she looked down at her legs, and found that a greenish glow was creeping up her body. She was too suprised to scream, a bright green flash, and she was gone.

Author's note: Oooh, strange, huh? Well, if you like it, I will put up the second part. Man, I've cranked out three fics in three days. I need another hobby, eh?

~Moxie ^_^

Disclaimer: As usual, I do not claim to own any character that I have mentioned in this story that is in the series of Harry Potter. Those belong to J.K. Rowling. The names Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor also belong to her. (All bow down to the Mighty Rowling!) ^_^

However, I _do _happen to own Gabriel, Hayley, Robert and Sarah. If you find the need to use my quartet, feel free to do so, just be sure to ask me first, all right? 


	2. The Wonderful World of Wands

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Hogwarts, school of Wizardry and Witchcraft...

Harry poked at his breakfast with his fork. The bacon and eggs on his plate looked delicious, and he was starving. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to swallow. Something was prodding incessantly at the back of his brain, though he didn't know what. He frowned at his plate, and reached for his glass of pumpkin juice. Hermione looked at him.

"Harry, are you okay? You haven't eaten at all." the simple sentence jolted Harry back to his living senses.

"Humm? What? Oh, oh yeah, I'm all right," he gave Hermione a put on smile. Hermione didn't seem convinced in the least, but she didn't say anything.

Light flashed at the corner of Harry's eyes. He whirled around sharply, and to his suprise, several other people turned around also, staring around the Great Hall with a mixture of astonishment and flat shock.

"Did you see that?" came a voice from the Hufflepuff table.

"What happened? Did you see it too?"--random voices.

Harry just stared. In the center of the room, so it seemed, several little particles, in a deep red, a bright yellow, turquoise blue, and emerald green combined into four different glowing orbs, which floated around the room lazily for a second. Then they exploded.

Harry shielded his eyes and flinched in his seat, in case some sort of debris decided to try to hit him, but nothing happened. He cracked his eyes open, and they met four, very befuddled looking children.

The first was a girl, looking maybe a little younger than Harry himself, was dressed in a seemingly once fine yellow dress, that looked like all the finery had been hacked off inexpertly. She had wavy copper color hair, and light green eyes. She also looked terrified out of her wits, and she was breathing raggedly, and Harry couldn't see from his seat if she was crying or not.

The second was another girl, looking very alert and suspicious. She was darting her dark brown eyes around like she suspected everybody to pounce on her at the same moment. She was wearing what looked like a very tattered brownish T-shirt, with rips and dry blood on one side. She had on a pair of cutoff jeans. The girl also looked very greasy and dirty.

The third was a male, wearing a black shirt and jeans. His blue eyes looked around the room lazily, and he had a rather startling shock of red hair on his top. He also had an aura around him that made you think he was very studious, very intelligent. He scanned the room coolly, as if this was nothing new, he just appeared in strange places on a regular basis.

The last one was another girl, with shoulder-length very curly black hair, and steel gray eyes that looked about warily, like she was very tired and worn out. She was wearing a green top with black jeans, and held a book in her left hand, now being propped up against her leg, with her finger to mark her spot. 

Nobody spoke. Then the first girl, with the brown eyes made a karate sound in her throat and started decking the other three children around her in a manic-like fashion. The girl in the yellow dress squealed and ran away, behind the Ravenclaw table. The boy just backed away, holding his hands in front of him, signaling that he didn't want a fight. The last girl, with the black hair, stood there a bit too long, and got one of the other girl's flailing fists in the middle of the face, making her reel backwards, clutching her nose. She fell on her behind near the Gryffindor table.

"Alright, girly," she growled under her breath menacingly, "you've asked for it. Nobody hits Sarah Slytherin and gets away with it, nobody!" Harry looked at the rest of his table, with his jaw dropped.

"What? What did she say her name was again?" The rest of the table, having quite the same expression on their faces, and shrugged. Sarah, if that was her real name, went over to the hysterical girl and kicked her in the stomach, making her keel over in suprise and lack of breath. Then Sarah pinned her down to the floor, using her knees and hands, and looked her squarely in the face.

"_What_ is your _problem_?!?" she screamed at the other girl, who was flailing about under her grip, and not getting anywhere.

"You'll never take me alive!!" was the answer, and she opened angry brown eyes, that stared defiantly back into Sarah's gray ones.

"Take you alive where?!" Sarah yelled in her face. "I don't want to take you _anywhere_, because of your crappy attitude! Now calm down, or I will make you!" 

Harry started. Crappy? Nobody that he knew used that word. Sarah's accent was also different than his was. More crude, more grating on the ears, louder. Was it possible, possible that Sarah wasn't English? Turning back to the spectacle on the floor, Harry noted that the girl under Sarah had stopped wriggling, and stared up in shock.

"You mean, you're, you're not with the British police squad? Not a constable? Not working for justice?" Sarah got off the girl, and was now in such a bad temper that she flung her book across the room before answering.

"Do I look like I'm a police officer! No, I'm not a constable! I've never even been to England! I've never been to _Canada_, even! I'm not English! I'm a pureblooded American, and damn proud of it!" she thumped her fist to her chest in a flare of patriotic pride. The other girl's eyes began to water.

"I'm sorry..." she covered her eyes with her hands and turned to her side. Sarah, still a bit aggravated, but not angry anymore, gave a stubborn sigh and dropped on her knees beside her.

"Sorry about hauling off on you like that. But getting hit isn't exactly a very nice wake up call." Sarah dug in her pocket and drew out a very squashed, folded, half-empty plastic container of Kleenex and offered one to the other girl, who took it. She sniffed.

"My name is Gabriel Gryffindor. What's yours?" Gabriel stuck out her hand, and Sarah took it.

"Sarah Slytherin. Put 'er there." She grabbed Gabriel's hand harder, and got up, pulling Gabriel up with her. "If you'll excuse me, I've got to go find my book that I hurled across the room a few minutes ago." Gabriel nodded and took a seat at the Gryffindor table, where people stared.

"Is your name really Gryffindor?" asked Ginny Weasley, looking suspicious. Gabriel shrugged, and gave her a corky smile.

"Last time I checked, little one." Ron cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted across the room to Sarah.

"You're name's not actually Sarah Slytherin, is it?" Sarah, who was by the Ravenclaw table at the time, cupped her hands and yelled back.

"As far 'z I know, sweetheart." Ron blushed at being addressed like this, but Sarah treated it as nothing. Instead she yelled again. "Has anyone seen my book? It's green, you know, small, shaped like a book? Anyone?"

"Is this it?" it was Malfoy. He held a very ragged, torn, and otherwise beaten to a pulp cover, that must have held a story inside of it. Sarah clapped her hands in delight.

"That's it! Thanks, hon." she snatched the book from his fingers, plopped on the floor, and started reading as if nothing unusual had just occurred. Dumbledore stood up.

"Will the four newcomers please come up here?" when nobody came, he took on a more urgent tone. "Now would be nice." The four came up rather reluctantly. "Names?" Dumbledore prodded.

"Gabriel Gryffindor," said the girl formerly at the Gryffindor table.

"Robert Ravenclaw," said the boy.

"Hayley Hufflepuff," said the girl in the yellow dress with a small sniff.

"For the last freaking time, Sarah Slytherin!" said Sarah irritably. Dumbledore nodded.

"Ahh, very well. Do you mind if we, run a few experiments on you four?" Dumbledore asked in a very airy voice. The first three shook their heads, and Sarah just grunted. "Very well then." Dumbledore tapped his wand against the table a few times, making it glow a dark shade of purplish-black, and handed it to Gabriel, who looked at it incredulously.

"What do you want me to do with it?" Dumbledore sighed impatiently and looked at her squarely.

"Wave it around. It's a magic tester. I know, I know..." he said when he saw the very confused look on Gabriel's face. "Just do it, and I'll answer questions later." Gabriel shrugged and took the wand in her right hand.

Red sparks emitted from the end of it, startling Gabriel to the point to where she almost dropped it. But she reclaimed her grip on it, and drug the sparks through the air, where they twisted and shaped into an image of a fiery red bird. The bird encircled its maker twice, before soaring off into the top of the Great Hall, where it dissipated into a little shower of molten red specks. Gabriel clapped her hands in delight.

"Wow! That was really neat!" The rest of the Great Hall, (primarily the Gryffindors) agreed with her. Dumbledore took the wand from her and handed it to Hayley, who flinched a bit before taking the wand from his fingers, gingerly. She gave it a slight shake.

A little whirlwind of gold and orangish sparks sprang out of the wand, landing on the floor, turning steadily into a small yellow tornado. It sprang into the air, and started dancing and wavering around Hayley to an unknown beat. Finally, it gave off a little explosion, which sent yellow streaks into the air, not unlike a barrage of shooting stars. Hayley squealed and reached out a hand to catch one of the yellow streamers.

"How was that?" she asked, giggling a bit as one streamer touched her cheek. Dumbledore smiled. 

"Very good. Next, please." Hayley handed the wand down the line to Robert, who looked at it as if it would bite him at any second. He bit the feeling down, and wiggled the wand.

The tip of it glowed light neon blue. He pulled it through the air, and it left a squiggly trail behind it. When Robert finished drawing, the line turned itself into a long cornflower snake. It twisted its coils affectionately around its owner, lashing out a forked tongue of navy. Finally, it stopped, and dove into the tile floor, leaving behind a little dusting of blue powder/magic where it left. Robert smirked in pride, and looked at Dumbledore expectantly, who nodded.

"Very nice. Give it to Sarah now." Sarah took the wand from Robert, and sighed at it impatiently. Instead of wiggling the wand lightly, she wound her wand up, and gave it a hefty snap, not unlike one would do to a lasso.

Nothing happened for the first five seconds. Then, the tip of it started sending off little green sparks all over the place. Wherever they hit, grew a tiny purple flower, an african violet. Sarah stared at the wand until it stopped. Then she knelt down to the nearest flower and touched its petals gently. It was as real as any other flower she had touched, with the exception that she had never touched a flower the grew in tile before. She looked up at Dumbledore, who returned the look with one of a mixed confusion and impression.

"Hmm, yes, very interesting. Please return the wand, Miss Slytherin." Sarah returned the wand with a flick of her wrist. "It does seem that you all have magical capabilities. I wonder why nobody picked it up earlier," he put a hand to his chin in thought.

"Excuse me?" asked Hayley a bit timidly. Dumbledore looked down at her thoughtfully. 

"Yes?"

"I was wondering..." she swallowed, as if she was taking a great liberty in just speaking to the man, "Where are we?" Before Dumbledore could answer, Robert spoke up.

"Yes, an explanation would be very nice about now," he said, a touch sourly. Dumbledore chuckled.

"You are at Hogwarts, School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. You, have just been accepted in, if you choose to attend," he looked down at the four. They gawked.

"What?" they chorused, in total shock and disbelief.

"Magic? That doesn't exist," said Robert, as if he was trying to talk sense into Dumbledore. Dumbledore just smiled.

"Actually, it does. And in this school, there are four houses. Guess what their names are," he said in an annoying, 'guess-who' tone. Sarah scowled.

"I don't give a damn-" she stopped and restarted the wording on the sentence when she saw the warning look on Dumbledore's face. "I don't give a darn what they're called. Stop playing with my mind!" Dumbledore looked quite amused.

"Oh, but you will. Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Those are the names of the houses. Each has their own history of outstanding witches and wizards, and you happen to share the names of the founders of this school." Robert frowned.

"I don't see any proof," he said, smacking his right hand with his left fist, looking straight at Dumbledore defiantly, almost.

"Maybe we should just take his word for it, I mean, we were transported here, right?" asked Hayley, in a meek voice. Gabriel and Sarah snorted at the same time.

"That's where you get off, trusting everybody too much," Gabriel said, unbraiding her hair listlessly as she shot a look at Hayley. Hayley looked at them, a bit abashed, so it seemed.

"What do you mean?" she asked, squeaking, green eyes flashing about the room, as if looking for a quick exit.

"We mean," Sarah said, speaking slowly, as if Hayley was not quite that bright, "If you go around trusting people with your whole heart, we don't care what you say, you're bound to end up getting screwed over anywhere you go." Gabriel nodded in agreement.

"Damn straight," she said, pulling fingers through her greasy hair. Dumbledore looked a bit interrupted, but continued.

"So, do you want to stay here?" The foursome shrugged in unison. 

"Has to be better than what I left behind," Gabriel sighed. Sarah nodded in agreement. Hayley and Robert shrugged again and nodded.

"What about tuition and school supplies?" asked Robert sensibly. "And uniforms? And uh, wands and such?" Dumbledore looked up.

"Don't you have parents?" Harry noticed that while Robert and Hayley looked considering, Gabriel and Sarah went a bit red in the cheeks, but they snapped out of it quickly.

"No," Sarah said simply. "At least, they completely abandoned me at an orphanage last year and I haven't heard from them since. Personally, I hope they fell off the face of the earth," she finished flatly. Gabriel scuffed her foot on the floor.

"My parents all died two years ago in a plane crash," she kept it short, too much detail, and Gabriel was afraid she would cry. Hayley sighed.

"My parents are rich, but I doubt that they would give any expense towards this. They think I don't spend enough time being a proper young lady, and I don't think that learning magic goes along the lines of young lady training." Robert nodded to Hayley.

"I live with my aunt, but she's frugal, and I don't think she would believe me if I told her I needed money to go to a school for magical training. She'd probably think I had gone bonkers from studying too hard." He gave a short, cynical laugh. Dumbledore nodded sympathetically.

"Well, the school has all types of robes donated to us from older students, and there are several old copies of books just lying about the place...That still leaves that matter of the wands, though....I say, what's the matter?" Hayley was wrinkling her nose in disgust, and Robert looked positively sickened. Hayley cleared her throat.

"Pardon me, sir, but, wear someone else's cast-offs?" Robert looked a bit disgusted still.

"Old books? Wouldn't they have gone out of date, or do wizard book update themselves, or something like that?" Dumbledore looked at Gabriel and Sarah, who shrugged.

"I don't mind wearing someone else's 'cast-offs', as she says," Sarah stated gloomily. "Everything I get is second-hand either way I look at it. Even my free-time books," she held up her very bedraggled copy of Tom Sawyer. Gabriel nodded and motioned to her own clothes.

"Anything, 'cast-offs' or not, would be better than this," she pointed to the side of her body that had obviously been cut up by something. "And I haven't had any sort of books for awhile." Dumbledore looked at Hayley and Robert. 

"Unless you can come up with the money to buy yourselves some new books and robes, you haven't much of a choice." Hayley and Robert agreed to this rather sullenly. Dumbledore turned back to the rest of the Hall, which had been watching with interest for the last few hours without moving.

"As it is almost....Wow. One in the afternoon, I declare the rest of today a day off. As for you four, come with me." Silence echoed itself in the Hall until the five left the room. Then complete chaos over what had just happened erupted.

*** 

The foursome followed Dumbledore down the hallway, none of then really listening as he rambled on about the school. Gabriel tilted her head towards the high ceiling.

For such an old man, he sure has long-winded lungs, she thought with a sigh as they plodded down yet another hallway.

"Here we are!" Dumbledore's cheery voice rang out into their heads, interrupting Gabriel's thoughts. The room was quite honestly, heaped full of black robes, slung over the door, piled around the walls, spilling out of crates, everywhere. Dumbledore chucked softly at the looks of repulsed amazement that must have been hanging all over their faces.

"These are Hogwarts robes. When people get jobs and leave, they need new robes to go along with the new jobs. So, most of them leave their robes here. I'll warn you, they're not cleaned, but, we can fix that up easily."

"So," Robert said, feeling overwhelmed by the number of clothes, "what do we do? Try them on until we find ones that fit?" Dumbledore chuckled again.

"Nope. We have an easier, faster way to do this," he rolled up his sleeves and flicked his wand. A pile of about seven different robes flew into Hayley's arms. "Those will fit you, Miss Hufflepuff," he continued flicking his wand and giving people piles of clothes, until all of them had a suitable wardrobe. He turned to them all. "Come with me, you four." 

They walked down some more corridors and hallways until they came by four different doors in the woodwork. "These are the public washrooms, you may use these to freshen up a bit. If you'll give me the clothes, I'll have them washed for you," Dumbledore held out his hand, the children tossed him their robes, and they each walked into a bathroom. They were small, square, white and generic, but suited their needs perfectly. Hayley sighed and turned on the hot water.

Slipping out of her dress, Hayley felt a little pang when the yellow muslin hit the tiled floor. I wonder if my parents know I'm gone yet. I wonder if they even miss me. She stepped into the tub, and the hot water was pure heaven to her suddenly aching body.

Hayley sat in the warm, pleasant water for a few minutes, soaking in the bliss of it's entirety, before reaching for the vanilla-scented soap bar and washcloth. 

She sighed as she rinsed out her hair and grabbed one of the fluffy white bathtowels that had appeared there. After drying off, magically, so it seemed, (well, thought Hayley with a slight grimace, it probably was magic) a black robe appeared on top of the toilet seat. Picking it up, she saw that it was one solid black garment, no buttons, no zippers, it probably slid over her head. She noticed that there were more things under the black robe. There was a white robe, and a small box, with a card. The card read:

Hayley-

These are some toiletries that you might find useful.

-Professor Dumbledore

P.S.--The white robe is the under robe, in case you were wondering.

Hayley looked at the white robe, and saw that some new underthings fell out of the robe --wrapped in plastic, so Hayley could be sure that they were new. Pulling on the three layers of clothes, she looked in her box. It contained a brush, a toothbrush, toothpaste and other things. Hayley smiled at them fondly. How kind. Five minutes later, Hayley emerged, freshened up and smelling like vanilla. The other three were waiting for her, each standing next to a pile of books.

"You sure took long enough, Hayley," it was Sarah, smelling freshly of a fruit salad, a smell that fitted her perfectly, Hayley thought. Sarah's eyes were twinkling at her sleepily. She had her black curls done up in a low ponytail, and leaned tiredly against her books.

"Those are your books," Robert had the aroma of of fresh air after the storm.

"I wonder why they gave us level five books, if we literally know nothing about magic," speculated Gabriel, yawning and smelling like chocolate. Dumbledore walked in on the halfway asleep children and smiled at them.

"Did you have a nice bath, you four?" They all nodded drowsily and mumbled yeses. "If you're too tired to go get wands today, I will more than understand..." all four snapped to attention at the same time.

"Tired?"

`"You must be joking." Dumbledore just smiled.

"Very well, then. Come with me. Your books will be transported to your rooms." A flick of his wand and the piles of books disappeared. Another careless flick, and all four of them were gone.

***

They appeared in front of a shop labeled Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC Gabriel looked about the street. It was crammed with all sorts of people, all in robes of any color of the rainbow. She was admiring a man in a smart looking maroon robe, when Sarah gripped her shoulders and gently steered her into the shop. The door shut behind them, and a bell tinkled somewhere in the shop. The air was very dusty, and it made Gabriel breath rather raggedly. This was not what she had expected from a wand shop. Sarah seemingly read her thoughts.

"I was expecting some big, regal place," came her clipped voice. "But this looks like some old warehouse, for God's sake! It needs to be dusted, if I say so myself." Sarah coughed irritably, as if to make her point clearer. The rest nodded.

"Professor Dumbledore?" came a voice. The children jumped and whirled around. Gabriel's heart gave an unpleasant jolt, until she saw the man.

He was a very un-handsome, skinny, almost sickly looking old man, with pale skin, and very unnerving pale eyes. This must be Mr. Ollivander, she thought as his almost-white eyes glanced over her.

"Four students? You must be Gabriel, Hayley, Sarah and Robert. Ahh yes. I have been expecting you for over a year. Well, we must get started. Step up, Gabriel." With some reluctance, Gabriel stepped forward. "Wand er, writing hand?" Gabriel looked down at her hands. It had been so long since she had actually written anything that she had nearly forgotten.

"Errm, I think I was right-handed, though I'm not entirely sure." Mr. Ollavander nodded and pulled down a box from a shelf. In it was a tape measure. He started measuring all sorts of joints and places on Gabriel's body, though Gabriel was too intent on looking around to notice. 

"All right, try this one first, Miss Gryffindor. Ten inches, snappy. Yew. Unicorn tails along with eternal nightshade. Good for Transfigurations. Give it a wave." Gabriel looked at the man funny, and waved the wand, expecting the reddish bird to appear again, but nothing happened. Before Gabriel could try again, the man snatched the wood from her hands. He gave her another.

"Yes, yes, very well. Try this one. Eight inches, sticky. Cherry. Dragon eyelashes and heartstrings. Good for the brave at heart, which I believe you are, Miss Gryffindor."

Gabriel blushed a bit, and and gave the wand a sharp snap, like Sarah did back at the Great Hall. Nothing happened. Gabriel couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

"How about this one? 13 inches, bendy. Redwood. Hair from a banshee, and fangs of a twenty-foot long python. Good for curses." 

Gabriel hoped the other people didn't notice her moments flinch before reaching out to take the wand and giving it a weak waggle. To her relief, nothing happened, and Mr. Ollanvander took the wand from her again.

"Very well. Tough customer, I see. Try this. Fifteen inches, stocky. Pine. Dried nightengale spice, and a Bloodswirl rose stem. Good for the plant-lover....."

Three hours later, Gabriel's feet started to complain from standing up for so long. She heard an impatient grumble from Sarah, and the corner of her eye caught Robert switching his position on the floor. Hayley was swirling her finger in the collection of dust on the tile. Gabriel was sorry, but she wasn't sure what Mr. Ollavander wanted. He handed her another wand, and Gabriel took it, with a tired sigh.

"Last one. Twenty inches, whippy. Maple. Sap from a Chamblerston tree, needles from an Everlasting pine. Good for the woodsman." 

Gabriel stared at the huge wand, but took it, and gave it a weak wiggle. Yet again, nothing happened. The pile of wands on the floor was at least as tall as Gabriel herself, and Gabriel plopped on the floor, sending up a cloud of dust.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Ollavander, sir. But what are you looking for?! We've been at this for at least an hour, and nothing's happened!"

"Actually," interrupted Robert grumpily, "it's been three hours." Gabriel gave an impatient huff, and Robert shut up.

"Okay, fine. Three hours then! Maybe there was a mistake. Maybe I'm not magical, and Professor Dumbledore's wand is broken!" She pointed a hysterical finger at Dumbledore, cheeks burning with utter impatience. Hayley put a hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay, Gabriel, just calm down.." Gabriel wanted to push her away, but in reality, she was glad she was there, and her soothing personality soon brought Gabriel's temper down. Gabriel stood up, shaking out her robes.

"Sorry," she muttered, trying to wipe the dust off her robes. "I lost my temper," she groaned, and righted herself again. "Do you have any more wands for me to try out?" she couldn't help adding an exasperated sigh to the end of the sentence. Mr. Ollavander looked at her with his unblinking pale eyes, as if searching for something.

"Yes, Miss Gryffindor. I believe I have a wand for each of you to try out," heads pricked up. Dumbledore just smiled one of his annoying smiles again. "Wait here," he disappeared into the back of the store. Gabriel looked at the other four and shrugged. Sarah just yawned, and the other two shrugged back.

A few minutes later, Mr. Ollavander came back in with four boxes covered in a layer of dust as thick as felt. But Gabriel's sharp eyes could pick out that under all the dust, each box had a respective color; emerald green, sunshine yellow, dark turquoise, and a deep cherry crimson. He handed Sarah the green one, Hayley the yellow one, Robert the blue one and Gabriel herself got the red one.

"I'm sure you have heard of the founder of Hogwarts? Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw?" The foursome nodded. "These are their wands." Gabriel nearly dropped the satin lined box. Robert spoke in a shocked voice.

"B-but that must mean that these are over a thousand years old!" he cried, incredulously. Mr. Ollavander nodded at him, which made Robert stagger with the box. "Shouldn't these be in a museum, or something?" Mr. Oleander sighed, as if he was repeating some information he had said over a million times.

"They were in a museum, up until a year ago, when a prediction was made by one of the oldest, most respected prophet of all time, Sybille Sandstone, she's over one hundred years old. In fact, I believe that you have a teacher named after her, don't you, Professor Dumbledore?" Gabriel jumped a bit. In all this, Dumbledore had been so quiet, Gabriel had all but forgotten that he was there. Dumbledore cleared his throat before speaking.

"Err, well, yes in fact, we do," he continued on, scratching the back of his head as he spoke. "But it is with a bit of regret that I say Miss Trelawny is not as--efficient--as Sandy herself is," Ollavander smiled a bit knowingly. 

"I understand, Mr. Dumbledore, sir. Go on children, open the boxes." Gabriel took a deep breath and pulled off the top of the box. Inside, embedded in a fold of fabric that was carnation pink colored, was a very old looking wand, with a small golden lion's head on the top. The wand was a deep shade of brown, but when the light hit it just perfect, it gleamed reddish. Mr. Ollavander spoke slowly and quietly, as if almost afraid of stirring the silence in the room.

"That's a mahogany wand. Looks about ten inches, snappy," he picked up the wand and examined it thoroughly. "Phoenix tail feathers, oooh, two Phoenix feathers, and bark from a Shaven tree, lucky lucky, those are extinct from the plant world," he handed back the wand. "Good looking for fighting ferocious beasts. You have a very well-rounded wand there, Miss Gryffindor." Gabriel beamed, and waved it about a bit. Red sparks shot through the top, and a pleasant feeling washed over through her fingers. Mr Ollavander turned to Robert.

His wand was lying on a bed of sky blue silk. It was lighter than Gabriel's own wand, but was a medium shade of brown, but seemed to have almost blue specks when the light hit it. There was a miniscule slivery eagle perched on top of it. Mr. Ollavander spoke.

"That's a elm, eleven inches, whippy. Dragon wing scales, Phoenix flight feathers, and a single Platinum Raven wing feather. A flighty, strong, wise old wand. Very good for a smart, strong wise, flighty young man." He moved to Hayley.

Her wand was on a cushion of daffodil yellow. It was a very light honey color, yellow almost, with a bronze ribbon inlayed in it. Mr. Ollavander cleared his throat.

"Pine, nine inches, wavy. Let's see, a flaming-tailed Redwren tail feather, grain of a redwood tree from the magical forests in Albania, and some dried Poppy seed. Not the most powerful wand in the world, but very potent, Miss Hufflepuff. Be proud." He walked on to Sarah, who couldn't stand the suspense of it all, had already opened the box, and was staring at the wand in its pillow of creamy mint-colored fabric. Mr. Ollavander pulled it out.

It was a very dark, almost black shade of wood, with an interesting sheen of a greenish tint to it. There was a diamond snake wrapped around it, that reared up at the top, showing off its crystal-clear fangs.

"Ebony, dark Ebony at that. 12 inches, bendy. Fangs from each different member of the jewel-snare family of reptiles, and a small dried sprig of Thyme. Not a magical element, but when the founders of your school made their own symbolic wands, Mr. Slytherin had a love for plants," he looked at Sarah. "This wand is the most powerful, and also the most dangerous of all four of the wands you have seen here today. Use it carefully." He turned from Sarah, making her shiver.

"There will be no charge, Mr. Dumbledore, sir. Those wands wouldn't fit anybody else, or make any effort to. Good day," he walked into the back of the shop. The children stared, but Dumbledore just smiled.

"Shall we leave?" a flash, and they were gone.

***

It was dinnertime in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, and still the four newcomers and Dumbledore were not back.

"How long does it take to buy four wands? I was thinking it would take a couple of hours at the very most," said an irritable Ron, poking at his chicken potpie aimlessly. Harry sighed and was about to answer, before a red blur passed by his eyes, making the entire table swivel around in their seats. Suddenly, Gabriel Gryffindor appeared about four feet above their heads, and fell with a rather large flop on the table, making the glasses wobble and tip. There were three other large thuds too, and four befuddled children looked up at them tiredly.

"I swear to God," Sarah yawned. "If we get transported somewhere else today, I'm going to get-" she yawned again "-very pissed." Gabriel giggled slightly.

"You're losing your tough edge, bad ol' Slytherin," she teased innocently. Sarah gave her a tired smile and stuck out her tongue.

"It's been a long day, you," she held up her wand and looked at it with a tiny ironic smile. "And in the course of six hours, I've become a wizard and gotten a wand with a snake's head on it." 

"How come she got a wand with a decoration on it?" asked Goyle, stupidly staring at it. "Mine's just plain." Sarah yawned and stretched out.

"'Course you didn't, silly. This here is Slytherin's wand himself," Sarah hopped off the table, and the entire table gawked after her.

"Slytherin's wand?" they all asked in unison. Sarah groaned and righted herself on the floor where she stood. She looked around at them

"Someone please show me to where I'm sleeping?" a girl got up and led her away. Before leaving, she shouted back to the rest of the Great Hall.

"'G-night, y'all!" Gabriel waved and yelled back.

"Sleep tight, snake girl!" Sarah wiggled her fingers and made a hissing noise at Gabriel before winking and striding away.

Author's note: Not the most exciting chapter, but I believe I have some misunderstandings here. These people are *descendants* of the original four founders, hence, the school has all ready been founded. And, I noticed after I put it up...The first part was almost a direct parody of Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic! Arrgh! And I was *trying* to make this original. Well, rest assured, that hopefully will be the *only* direct parody of Tamora Pierce's series! Besides my Celeste story, but that's a bit more watered down than my first chapter of this was.... Dang, I need to get my facts straight here....And another hobby. This is the *fourth* story in *four* days! I type too darn much! I need a life.....And please don't say that I don't include Hayley and Robert that much. (It's true, though.) I just don't know that much about Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff yet. I'm working on the plot; it'll come out all right....I hope.

~Moxie ^_^

Disclaimer: The only people I own in this entire story are Sarah, Robert, Gabriel, and Hayley and Robert. Ugh. And they are almost direct copies of Tamora Pierce's Tris, Sandry and Briar. I don't think Daja is very much like Robert, though....Also, the first part of this series is almost a copy of the first chapter of Circle of Magic, by Tamora Pierce. Read it, and see what I mean. I promise I'll try not to do that again! :::falls to knees:: Please, *please* *please* don't sue me. I have no money....~_^


	3. New Places, New Classes, New Visions

Air moved, in the form of a small gust. Robert winced as predawn light danced inside of his tightly shut eyelids. Without opening his eyes yet, he reflected. What a strange dream. Something about witches and a girl named Harriet...Hayley? And others.... A rough hand shook his shoulder.

"Hey Rob. Sleepyhead. Time to get up and enlighten the less fortunate with your fountain of Ravenclaw knowledge." The voice was slightly sarcastic, but amusing at the same time. Robert's eyes shot open, and locked on a pair of hazel ones. Now he was confused. Who was this person? Why wasn't he in his bedroom? Where was he at, anyway?

"Who?....Where?...." The boy groaned, and shifted his weight from foot to foot nervously, as his hazel eyes unfocused for a moment.

"They said that you might be confused....You're at Hogwarts, school of Wizardry and Witchcraft. You came here yesterday, with three other girls, Sarah, Gabriel, and Hayley. Does that ring a bell?" Robert blinked. So it wasn't a dream. He nodded.

"Yes...." he got up and put his slightly stiff feet on the wooden floor. "Please don't call me Rob, by the way. I despise having my name shortened." The hazel-eyed, black-haired boy grinned, and stuck out his hand in a gesture for a handshake.

"I'm to be your guide to the rest of the school, so you can get oriented. My name is Alexander Zephyr. But, unlike yourself, I despise being called by my full name. Alex, if you please." Robert, despite his raging headache, returned the handshake, so as not to appear rude. Alex must have noticed.

"I know, the time change is probably going to bother you for a while. I'm sorry, but Dumbledore said that you are to be excused from any class at any time, if you feel like you are going to fall asleep," he finished kindly. Robert sighed, but managed a smile.

"Miss a class to sleep? You must be joking." Alex grinned again, showing healthy white teeth.

"Spoken like a true Ravenclaw. Get dressed, and I'll show you the way downstairs, to meet everybody." He left, and Robert reached for a clean pair of robes.

# # # 

Gabriel had been up for a while, when some students started to filter slowly down the stairs, half-asleep. She grinned at the people who stumbled over the rug, on the ways to the showers. Besides the fact that she was a morning person in the first place, she was almost too excited to sleep, let alone sleep for the entire night. She had spent an entire hour just admiring herself in one of her dormitory's full-length mirrors, squealing in delight as the shimmering material of her robes swished around her new pair of black boots. When she had decided that she had been vain enough for one hour, she sat in one of the overstuffed crimson chairs, and waited. She was drifting off, until she heard the gentle crunch of weight settling on one of the chairs beside her. In it was a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl that yawned and smiled at her sleepily.

"I don't believe that I got the chance to introduce myself yesterday. My name is Hermione Granger. It's good to have you here." Gabriel eyed her, and then smiled.

"It's good to be here. When's breakfast?" Hermione yawned and looked at a watch that she had on her wrist.

"In about a half-hour. I'm going to take a shower now, I'll be back." Gabriel nodded. Hermione left. Sighing, Gabriel leaned back into the chair.

# # #

Learning that the Hufflepuffs were almost always early and prepared, Hayley sat at her table, toying with her fork, and listening to the other children talk. She had been at fancy banquets before, but this was the loudest one she had ever attended. She wasn't sure if her ears liked all the noise. The next thing that caught her attention was the Ravenclaws marching in. She caught Robert's eye, and he winked at her. Hayley's sharp eyes picked out bags under his eyes, though, and he looked like he would fall asleep. Some of the Ravenclaws walked over to mingle with the Hufflepuffs, and Robert was one of them. As he and Hayley conversed, the Gryffindors came in, and at the head of the mob was Gabriel, looking alive and awake. She waved merrily at the duo, and came over. Last to enter were the Slytherins, - Hayley noticed with discomfort - that there was a certain, millisecond of unease and enmity that dowsed the room of it's happy blurble for a few moments. Sarah staggered out from the Slytherin crowd and over to the Gryffindor table, where the trio had migrated.

"You blasted English people get up too early," Sarah groaned, glaring at them all with ferocious gray eyes. "It's only six in the morning." Gabriel giggled.

"And you blasted Americans sleep too late. What can you do with the day if you spend it all sleeping?" Sarah yawned and leaned against the table.

"Plenty. You only have to stay up late," her eyes gained something of a metallic sheen to them as she spoke. "That's when all the action is, at night." Robert made a face.

"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise," he quoted. Sarah rolled her eyes in the back of her head.

"And late to bed, and late to rise, makes great, uhh, ketchup covered fries!" Sarah sighed as the other three stared at her. "It's too damn early, and I don't care what your precious Ben Affleck says." Robert sighed with disdain.

"You mean Ben Franklin." Sarah growled.

"Whatever! Look; don't even try to talk to me until around one. All you'll get is a bunch of nonsense, and the sharpest edge of my tongue." Hayley grinned and reached up to pat Sarah's shoulder, as Sarah was quite a bit taller than Hayley was.

"That's okay, Sarah. We still love you." Sarah groaned and sat down at the Gryffindor table. Ron looked at the chair where she sat, and wrinkled his nose.

"Excuse me, but I believe that your table is over there," he pointed at the Slytherin table. Sarah cocked her head to look at him.

"I know. I'm only sitting here for a bit. Lay off, why don't you?" Ron backed off, and Sarah put her head on the table, banging it lightly. "It's...too...early...it's....too...early..." she said, in rhythm with the banging.

"Sarah," Gabriel said, trying to keep from laughing," it's okay, you know, you don't have to give yourself a concussion." Sarah looked up from her banging.

"I know," she said morosely, "but..." She was interrupted by Ron.

"Trouble at six o'clock," he grumbled. Hayley whirled around, and saw a boy with silver-blond hair, and two mean-looking thugs behind him. Ron, Harry, and Hermione stood up, and faced the boy with resentment. The boy looked back the same way. Sarah snorted.

"Can't we just feel the love in this room?" she asked. Robert looked at her, nearly smacking himself over the head. Didn't Sarah ever know when to hold her sharp tongue?

Probably not, he thought sardonically, as the boy approached, regarding everyone with hard silvery eyes.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Ron spat at the boy. The boy rolled his eyes in the back of his head before answering.

"Nothing to do with you, Weasley." He turned to Hayley, Robert and Gabriel, and raised one of his eyebrows. He didn't comment, though. This close, Hayley could see that he held a package in his right hand. "You would be Sarah Slytherin, correct?" he asked, Sarah. Sarah sighed.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," she replied offhandedly. The boy nodded, and stuck out his hand for Sarah to shake. Sarah took it.

"Draco Malfoy. That's Crabbe," - he motioned to the boy on his left - "and that's Goyle" - motioning respectively to the boy on his right. "The Slytherin house welcomes you, and we have brought you a housewarming gift." Thus, he produced the package. Sarah looked at it, looked at the boy, and then tore into the brown paper.

It was a clear sphere, about the size of a tennis ball, with five little orbs of light that flitted around in it. The orbs changed color every few seconds, making for a very pretty effect.

"It's a Lumosphere," Draco explained. "They're pretty cool, and rather amusing, if I do say so myself." The orbs in the ball had changed from a bright pink to a mellow blue. Sarah grinned, and stood up. Expecting another handshake, Draco stuck out his hand. Instead, Sarah caught him off guard with an one-armed hug. 

"Tell all the other Slytherins that I love them too," Sarah said, smiling. "Gabby, Hayley, Bobby, Err, Dragon boy, Crabby, Toil? Goyle? Soil? Ack. Whatever. Tell me your names again later. I won't remember them." Everyone stared at her. 

"Okay, I'm going to feel bad later on, if I don't give you something, err, hang on.." she dug in her pockets. A bobby pin, a handful of cobwebs, and a butterfly clip. Taking out her wand, she tapped the butterfly clip with one snake fang.

"Do something," she ordered the wand. There was a flash, and where the clip was, was a bright pink butterfly. If flitted over to Draco's finger, and landed on it. Draco stared at it.

"Well," said Sarah. "You've got your very own....butterfly. Don't you feel special? I've got to leave. Things to see, people to do!" She blinked, and everyone stared at her, as she reaccounted the words of her last sentence. "Err, well, you know what I meant." She pushed her way through the crowd. Before she was swallowed up by the mass of people completely, she whirled around.

"Oh, and Dragon boy? Don't yatter so formally at me. I don't like it." She turned behind a body, and she was gone. Everybody blinked.

"Dragon boy?" asked Draco, weakly. Robert promptly answered.

"Draco means Dragon in scholar's terms. Did you know that your last name means 'bad mistake'?" Ron grumbled.

"It's only fitting." Draco impaled him upon an icy stare, but the look was somewhat softened by the fact that he had a bright pink butterfly on his right forefinger. In fact, the look was actually comical. Ron started to laugh, and Draco snapped his eyebrows together. The butterfly took flight, landing on Ron's nose. Ron sneezed. He sneezed again. And again. Finally, it got to the point that he couldn't stop sneezing. The butterfly left Ron's nose, and he kept on sneezing. Malfoy smirked as the butterfly landed on his shoulder.

"You know, I could get used to having you around." The butterfly seemed to swell with pride. Draco and his two thugs left. Ron was wiping his eyes with a cloth napkin.

"Memo to myself," he grumbled, "never underestimate the power of the butterfly." Gabriel laughed, and Hayley and Robert returned to their tables.

# # # 

Hayley left for her first class of the day, Potions, feeling odd. She didn't know why, but she found a picture of a woman in a long, yellow dress, and brown hair, that distracted her thoughts for a moment. The woman's eyes crinkled at the edges, from years of smiling, so it seemed, she was very plump, and kind blue eyes twinkled at her, from beyond a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. There was a dusty golden plaque below it. Wiping away some of the dust from the words, she could clearly read the engraving:

Helga Hufflepuff

Some say she was the person that came up with the idea to found Hogwarts.

As a prophet, and a divine seeker, she foresaw its construction, and ordered 

It's completion.

Hayley frowned at the lack of information that the plaque gave her. She was about to try to wipe off another layer of dust, but a soft voice interrupted her.

"Excuse me?" the voice was timid and meek, meeker than even Hayley's own. Hayley whirled around to find a girl, with a medium complexion, and soft brown hair that fell down to her shoulders looking back at her. But the thing that really got Hayley was her eyes. They weren't brown, black, blue, green or gray, but a soft shade of pink. The girl took a short breath and continued.

"Are....are you....perhaps lost?" she asked, clutching books to her chest, as if she expected Hayley to sprout horns and breathe fire on her at any minute. Hayley blinked. No, she wasn't lost, but, perhaps.....

"Yes, I'm lost. I have to go to Potions class. Can you show me there?" The girl blinked those carnation-colored eyes at her, and pointed down the corridor.

"Right down there. I don't see how you missed it. I'm in Hufflepuff too....Mind if I come?" Hayley wanted nothing more. 

"I should be delighted to," Hayley replied, remembering her manners. The girl smiled, and her meek expression changed.

"I'm Rosemary Magdalena. I know who you are, you're Helga - err, sorry, force of habit, Hayley Hufflepuff." Hayley nodded.

"Let's go." And with that, the duo walked into Snape's domain.

# # #

Robert had Astronomy first. Without Alex to lead him to and from all the strange places, he was sure that he would had been lost. It gave him a headache to try to figure out which tapestry-covered doors that Alex had led him though, or how many fake walls. He decided that he would figure it all out sooner or later.

"I'm warning you, now," Alex said as the came to a doorway that had been up three flights of stairs, "Professor Copperpot has a tendency to ramble, so, you don't have to listen to all of it." Robert laughed, and they entered.

__

Thirty minutes later....

It turned out, that Alex had been right. Professor Copperpot had spent a half-hour rambling on about this one star, and the parchment that was meant for notes was now covered with all sorts of doodles and drawings. Robert began to glaze off, just like he had done so often at his old school. That was when it happened. Just for a minute. There was a globe-like thing on a table by his desk, which held a comet in it. It was swirving around madly, banging against the magicked glass wildly, trying to get out. In a swirl of light from it's tail, Robert caught a glimpse of a castle, dark gray with a black background. He squinted at it. Were comets supposed to produce visions? He gripped his wand, and it felt oddly warm. He turned back to the comet, trying to get a closer look.

The protective sphere holding the comet broke.

Glass shards flew everywhere. Robert yelled and ducked, still gripping his wand. A blue shield erupted from it, and covered Robert like a transparent blue bowl. The comet swerved around the room, and it erupted with people trying to catch it. It finally flew out the window. Robert let the shield down, and Alex helped him up.

"Robert! Are you okay?" He really wasn't. He felt sweaty, shaky, and unreasonably uneasy. The image of the black castle had been pressed into his brain like a branding iron. But he nodded.

"I'm fine. Honest."

# # # 

Gabriel was in Herbology when the comet broke loose up in the Astronomy tower. Of course, she was completely obvlious to it, as she was up to her elbows in muck, trying to keep her hold on Passion seeds. "If you ground the petals up," Sprout had told them, "they are used in love potions. But, they are very hard to grow, as they are fickle plants." Gabriel dove her arm in the dirt after one of the small silver seeds that she had dropped. There was a damp hand on her bare elbow: Professor Sprout's. 

"Gryffindor, why don't you go on and wash up? Class is over in fifteen minutes, and I want to show everybody the other purposes of Passion Plant. Gabriel nodded obediently, and Sprout went to another student. On her way to the fountain, Gabriel noticed a girl with frizzy red-blond hair and black eyes looked shyly at her. Gabriel smiled, and the girl approached.

"My name is Alanya Apollo. You're Gabriel Gryffindor, aren't you?" Gabriel nodded as she walked up to the fountain, with Alanya. "It's nice to meet you. I sleep three beds to the left of you, and I wanted to talk to you ever since you've gotten here." Gabriel smiled again, and stuck her hands in the water, scraping the dirt off her skin.

"That's nice of you to say, Alanya. Sprout's gonna do a lecture in a few moments. I'll sit next to you." Gabriel nudged Alanya playfully. "If you'll let me borrow your notes." Alanya's eyes danced in her head. 

"Oh, you." Alanya left to go get parchment and ink. Gabriel looked back in at the dirty water. Was it just her, or was the dirt in the water shaping around? It was. The dirt collected itself in a circle, and in it's mucky depths, Gabriel saw a gray castle with a black backdrop, looking over a moor. Gabriel blinked, not quite knowing what to think.

"Come on, Gryffindor!" Sprout called. "The lecture is beginning!" Gabriel shook her head violently, making her braid slap her back, and shaking her out of her trance.

"Coming, Professor." She shot one last look at the water, but the vision had disappeared, leaving just a cloud of muddy water in the basin.

# # # 

While all this was going on, Sarah was snoozing in History of Magic, taught by the ghostly Professor Binns. After the initial excitement of meeting a ghost for the first time, the class was very boring. Sarah reached for a quill and slowly started copying down something about Merlin the Magnificent, when the door opened. The class was disrupted for a moment, as everyone stared to look at the newcomer. It was a girl, dressed in black robes that were a bit too big for her, with blondy-brown hair, and sharp green-gray eyes, that darted around nervously, as the entire class stared balefully back at her.

"I'm Essex Ulysses," she said softly. "There was a mix-up, and I got here late." Professor Binns nodded, and stretched his ghostly form out.

"Very well, Miss.....Uluser. You may find a seat now." Essex looked around nervously, but nobody moved. Sarah groaned. She liked having the large double desk to herself, but, she was the only one that wasn't sharing. She pushed her stuff over to her own side, and motioned for this Essex girl to come over to her seat. Essex took the offer gratefully, and sat down, trying not to draw too much attention to herself as she did so.

"Thanks," Essex said, looking at her. "I owe you. For a moment I thought nobody was going to invite me in." Sarah nodded, only half-listening. 

"I'm Sarah Slytherin. Yes," she said to Essex's sudden surprised look, "you heard me right, Sarah Slytherin." Essex winked, but looked at Professor Binns, as he was staring at the pair. Sarah propped herself up on an elbow and took out her Lumosphere, and watched the orbs float lazily around, turning from a light blue to a greenish-yellow.

Then it started acting funny. The orbs started spinning around very fast, making one large yellow-green blue. Sarah almost dropped it, but gripped it tighter, and looked at it. In it, she saw the same gray castle with the black, stormy backdrop that Gabriel and Robert had seen. Feeling strange all of a sudden, she went back to copying notes like a madwoman, trying to get the image of the castle out of her mind.

# # # 

Hayley stirred feverishly at her black jelly-leg potion, trying to get it to turn gray before Professor Snape came over and decided to taunt her again. It wasn't _her_ fault the stupid toad legs she got were stale! Rosemary looked at her black mess and chuckled at it.

"Put some dragon blood in it. You don't have enough." Hayley nodded gratefully to her, and dumped in a vial of the thick, black blood.

The potion in the cauldron sizzled and bubbled for a few minutes, emitting off quite a lot of steam. When it was done, Hayley peeked over at her potion, which was now a creamy shade of gray.

"My parents are Potion Brewers," Rosemary said, tapping the side of the cauldron with her stirrer. "That's how I all ready know so much about this subject." It was true. She had finished her potion the fastest, and it wasn't too thick, too watery, or not the right color. Even Snape (whom Hayley had learned to look upon with a certain wary respect in the first almost-hour of meeting him), grudgingly admitted it was good, but wouldn't give Hufflepuff any points for it.

"He only gives points to his own house, which is Slytherin," Rosemary muttered to Hayley on occasion of Snape striding away. Hayley hid a smile behind her hand and went back to stirring her potion.

Finally, when Professor Snape came over to check the consistency of the potion, Hayley stopped, nervously. Snape dunked a finger in the stormy-gray concoction, and rubbed it between his forefinger and his thumb. The gray gloop fermented and became sticky. Hayley prayed that this was a good sign.

"Decent. For the first time," he said, with a rather silky clip to his voice. He strode off to go torture another poor being, whose name was Hannah Abbot. Her potion was an absolute mess, frothing over the edges of the cauldron, and a lively greenish color, instead of the gray. Hayley grinned. That was as good as a compliment that she would get from Snape. She was about to put her stirrer back in the cauldron, when she started.

In the unruffled surface of the potion, Hayley could see a gray castle, with a black background, not unlike what her other three counterparts had seen. Blinking, she stuck a hand out to try to touch it, only to be burnt by the potion's heat. 

"Ow!" She cried, looking for something to wipe her hand off with. Rosemary thrust a handkerchief into her fingers, and Hayley wiped the gray glop (which had turned almost rubbery) off of her hand.

Rosemary took the handkerchief from her with a slight jerk in her hand motion. "What in the name of God did you think you were doing?" Hayley winced. "I'm not trying to be like your mother or anything, but, you should know that potions are hot!" Hayley bit her lip. What was she going to say? She couldn't say anything about the castle.

"Err, I slipped," she lied. Rosemary looked at her with those unusual pink eyes, but turned back to her potion. Hayley closed her eyes, and the castle flashed over her vision. Shaking her head to clear it, she returned to her potion.

Author's note: Hmm, well, we're getting into the plot here. What castle? (To tell you the truth, I don't even know what I'm doing with the castle yet, but I decided that two chapters' worth of introductory babble was enough -_-;) Did you know that the last names of the main character's friends, (Essex, Rosemary, Alanya and Alex) their last names are names of butterflies? I haven't decided on the name of Malfoy's butterfly yet, but, it WILL play an important part in the rest of the story...(well, at least I think it will ^_^;;)

~Moxie ^_^ (P.S. And as always, no flames!)

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but I do own Alanya, Rosemary, Alex, Essex, (I don't know *where* I came up with the name Essex at...) Gabriel, Robert, Sarah and Hayley. I also own Malfoy's butterfly, and if you steal it, I will make it make you sneeze uncontrollably! LoL 


	4. Listen To Your Tarot Cards

Hayley was trying to study. She really was. It was just that it was so blasted hot in the library, and not to mention it was humid, dusty, and she was wearing a black robe to cap it all off. Looking up from her book (Allied Goshawk's guide to Transfigurations), she shot a glance at all of her counterparts. 

Gabriel was in the process of turning a yellowed page, and heaved a gigantic sigh while doing so. Her blond hair had been done up in a very high ponytail, and the sleeves of her robe had been done up, but moisture dotted her brow, and she looked positively miserable. 

Robert looked clear and cool as usual, as he leafed through the contents of a very thick volume on plants. Although he made no outward sign of complaint, his face had a glossy sheen to it, and his blue eyes looked dampened with the heat of the early April sun.

Sarah was another story all together. Her black hair had been done up in a messy bun, and she was looking at a pile of books through a pair of slitted gray eyes. The apples of her cheeks were red, a sure sign of the heat, and the fact that she was obviously getting aggravated in the first place. Sarah always seemed to be mad at something, though Hayley could never figure out what.

Toying with a stand of shiny copper hair, Hayley winced. She hoped that the short-tempered dark-haired girl would spare all of them the sharp edge of her tongue. If words were razors, Sarah would have cut them all to ribbons long ago. But Sarah's words seemed to be at bay for the moment, and Hayley sighed.

The sky out the small turret window was bluer than usual. If you could touch it, Hayley thought dreamily, it would probably be smooth and cool. She did so wish she could be outside right now, enjoying the weather, instead of taking notes on how to turn teakettles into turtles. Everyone evidently felt the same way, but didn't say anything, until Sarah did it for them. Slamming her books upon the table, she stood up.

"This is _ridiculous_," she proclaimed, striding over to the window. She sighed and looked out at the sky as a robin flitted by. "We can study later. This is the first day that's been perfect for a while. Let's go _outside_." Gabriel nodded, but Robert looked up from his books and shook his head.

"I've got a Herbology test tomorrow, and I need to study. You go on ahead." Hayley stood up, and smoothed out her robes.

"Come _on_, Robert. We've been studying for at least an hour. Don't tell me you don't want to go outside," she said in her most coaxing voice. Hayley noticed that Robert's eyes were migrating towards the window, and his 'baby blues' had a speck of whistfulness in them Gabriel saw this, and prodded forward.

"And if you don't, Sarah and I will find all of your precious tests and use them as fire kindling." Robert held all of his aced tests sacred to his heart, and this was an endless source of entertainment for the girls. 

"Oh, all _right_. I could use a break anyway. But afterwards, we're coming _right back_." Hayley clapped her hands together. Although she wouldn't prod or whine, she was very glad that Gabriel and Sarah would do so for her.

After putting back the books and deserting the library (much to Madam Pierce's relief) the foursome found themselves walking around the perimeter of the castle, without much of an objective, just chitchatting and enjoying the sunshine. Then they saw a bright pink butterfly flying towards them. On cue, Robert, Hayley and Gabriel sneezed. The butterfly landed on Sarah's nose, and wavered its wings, sending a little gust at her eyelids. Sarah laughed.

"I think you're the only person that dratted insect likes, Sarah," Hayley said a tad irritably, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. Robert grunted.

"That's not accurate. It also likes that Draco person." The butterfly (who was named Sprite) jumped off of Sarah's nose, and flew a few feet, intending for the four to follow.

"Come on, you guys!" Sarah beckoned, grabbing her robes in a handful and running off after Sprite. Gabriel, always looking for a run, followed at a sprint. Robert groaned and followed at a jog. Feeling it was too hot to run, Hayley gave a long, suffering sigh and followed at a brisk pace. 

They ended up at the Quidditch field. All four teams were there, as well as other people that were just in black robes. 

"Must be tryouts," Gabriel speculated. Sarah's face lit up.

"I want to try out! Where's the Slytherin team?" Gabriel pointed to a group in the far left-hand side of the field, clad in hunter green outfits. Robert, ever the sensible one, sighed.

"Sarah, you don't even know how to ride a broomstick. I don't think that you'll be able to make a Quidditch team." Sarah snorted, and Hayley braced herself for a wave of anger.

"You think too logically, Robert. I'm going to try out, hell or high water." Hayley swallowed.

"But you could fall and hurt yourself! You could snap your neck! Try next year, when you know how to fly!" she begged. Gabriel shook her head.

"You guys are acting like wet blankets on a fire. Smothering. If Sarah wants to try out let her. And if she snaps her neck, we can sit there and laugh." Sarah rolled her eyes in the back of her head.

"Are you going to try out, Gabby?" Gabriel asserted herself, and thrust her chest out proudly.

"Yep." She thumped a fist to her chest and continued. "For the house of Gryffindor, I will try out!" Sarah groaned.

"See you then, Gryffindor!" Sarah strode off in the direction of the green suited people. Gabriel smiled at winked at Hayley and Robert before striding off towards the crimson crowd. Hayley looked at Robert.

"Aren't you going to try out?" Robert grinned and shook his head while stubbing a foot into the soft earth.

"Nah. I'm into academics, not athletics. I'll just let the warrior women to it. What about you?" Hayley shook her head vigorously.

"No. I hate competition. It's stupid to get worked up over a bunch of brooms and flying balls." Robert nodded, understandingly.

"Wanna continue the walk? We have no other business here." Hayley nodded, and the now twosome walked off.

# # #

"Hey, guys!" Draco and the rest of his team whipped around to see Sarah, and the butterfly Sprite barreling towards them. Sarah came to a screeching halt in front of Marcus Flint.

"What do you want?" asked Flint. Sarah looked up.

"To try out for your team," she said innocently. Flint's eyebrows went up, and he snorted with laughter. It was followed by the other people of the team, and then taken up by Pansy Parkenson, who was witnessing the entire thing. Sarah's cheeks burned with hurt pride. 

"Look, girl," Flint said between tears of glee, "no girl has been on the Slytherin team in years..." Sarah, who was beginning to shake in fury, cut him off.

"With you idiots being so open-minded towards it, I'm surprised!" she screamed at him. Flint stopped laughing, and stood to tower over Sarah.

"You know I could probably knock the stuffing out of you, right?" Sarah, who was on an emotional rollercoaster at the moment, stood her ground and answered.

"Probably. But I'd give you a damn good run for your money before you did it." Flint raised his eyebrows.

"Really?" he asked, voice dripping with false interest. Sarah bristled, but still kept on looking Flint in the eye.

"The strongest of the weak will always overcome the weakest of the strong," Sarah quoted angrily. Flint nodded.

"You've got spunk, Slytherin, I like that. All right. I'll humor you. I trust you know how to fly?" Sarah really didn't, but she couldn't hold her tongue.

"Probably better than you can," she snapped. Flint's eyes twinkled with something like mean amusement. Draco smacked himself over the head. He knew for a fact that Sarah couldn't fly, but he wasn't going to say anything. For the fact that he wasn't going to hurt her pride any worse, and also that she would probably knock the living daylights out of him if he dared interfere. Flint handed her a broom.

"All right, then. Let's see this great 'talent' of yours, Slytherin." Sarah gripped the broom, and had no idea what to do. So, she straddled it, and leapt into the air. 

The magic of the broom caught her weight, and she was floating about three feet off the ground. In her mind, Sarah sighed with relief. At least she wouldn't make a total idiot out of herself yet. Flint's eyes glittered his amusement, and he handed Sarah a short club.

"The position that is open is Beater. You basically..."

"I'm not a _moron_, Flint. I _know _what a Beater does. I wasn't born _yesterday_, you know." With a slight jerk, Sarah snatched the club from his fingers, and darted up into the air. Flint released one of the bludgers, and it came towards Sarah. Summoning all of her anger, Sarah watched it approach.

"_I'll_ show them that girls don't play Quidditch..." she said to make herself angrier. The ball came closer and closer. Switching the club to her left hand, her stronger hand, she swung.

The crack that occurred when the ball hit the club was deafening.

The black ball flew about forty yards away, and then came back. Sarah struck it again, and it flew farther. It came back again, and Sarah did a barrel roll to avoid it. When it came back again, Sarah whipped out her snake wand.

"_Amortist_!" A green strand flew out of the snake's mouth and enveloped the ball. The ball was frozen in place, and Sarah grabbed it with one hand and flew down.

The entire Slytherin team gawked. Sarah avoided all of their stares and went over to Flint, whose jaw was hanging wide open.

"I believe that this is yours," Sarah said, handing him the black ball. Flint's hands dwarfed the ball as he grabbed it. He swallowed, and spoke.

"Practices start next week, from 3:30 until 5:00. We'll have to get you your own broom and outfits as soon as possible."

Sarah's ego swelled. 

# # #

The Gryffindors accepted Gabriel's want to try out better than the Slytherin team did, mostly for the sake that all of the Chasers were girls also. Since last year, the Captain and Goalkeeper, Oliver Wood had left; Gabriel was trying up against Seamus Finnigan for the position of Goalkeeper.

"Bank to your left!" was the cry from Fred Weasley. Gabriel gave the broom a slight jerk to the left. You needed reflexes to be a good Goalkeeper. Seamus may have had better knowledge of the broom than Gabriel did, but after two years of outwitting the police and running about, Gabriel had better reflexes.

"Right!" George called, and hurled the Quaffel to Gabriel's left. Cursing, she drug the broom out of its rightward course and towards the left. Flinging her arms off the handle of her broom, she stretched all the way out and gripped the red ball with the tips of her fingers, and quickly cradled it to her chest. 

"Left!" Fred called, and hurled the ball to Seamus's right. He flung himself over to the right, but the ball slipped through his fingers. Gabriel smiled.

"That's one up for me," she said quietly. Fred turned back to Gabriel

"Left!" Thinking that she had him figured out, Gabriel prepared to go to the right, but he surprised her by chucking it to her left. 

"For the love of crumb cake!" Gabriel cried while lunging for the ball. She caught it, but barely. Seamus raised an eyebrow.

"The love of crumb cake?" George surprised him by tossing the ball at his head, and Seamus staggered and gripped his broom as it bounced off his cranium.

"Pay attention, Goalie!" George cried. Gabriel giggled, and Katie Bell motioned them down. Gabriel was sorry to leave the air, but angled the broom into a nosedive, and jumped off it. Katie had been checking stuff off on a checklist, and when Gabriel, Seamus, Fred and George landed, she put her quill behind her ear.

"After much decision making," Gabriel scratched one of her legs with her other foot. She wished that Katie would just tell them already. "We have decided on Gabriel Gryffindor as our Goalkeeper for this year." Gabriel squealed with joy and jumped, punching the air with a triumphant fist. She remembered her manners and congratulated Seamus, but then went on celebrating. Sarah came up.

"I take it you made the team?" Draco came up behind her, and Harry, Ron and Hermione's brows furrowed. Gabriel hopped in the air excitedly.

"Yep! I'm the goalie. What about you?" Sarah was sick of watching Gabriel jump up and down like a kangaroo, so she started jumping also.

"Uh-huh. I'm a Beater." Gabriel stopped jumping, so did Sarah. Gabriel offered an arm to Sarah.

"Congrats, Yankee girl. Shall we frolic down the lane of fluffy marshmallow clouds and chocolate bunnies?" Sarah giggled and took her arm.

"Yes, ya bleatin Brit," she said with a bad English accent. Gabriel rolled her eyes and started skipping off, with Sarah in suit. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco stared after them.

You know," Ron said thoughtfully, "I think that Gabriel is missing the entire point of Gryffindor - Slytherin rivalry, if she hangs out with that Sarah chick all the time." Sprite flitted by, making Hermione, Ron and Harry sneeze. Ron cursed as he wiped his eyes on his robe.

"I _hate_ that _stupid_ thing!" he cried. Draco smiled as Sprite landed on his shoulder.

"Well, Weasley, maybe Sprite hates you." Harry snorted with laughter into his red Quidditch robe.

"Sprite? What kind of name is that?" Sprite flicked its wings angrily, and Harry went into another bout of sneezing.

After that, there was no more discussions about Sprite's name.

# # #

Hayley and Robert were enjoying a peaceful walk around the lake, watching the Giant Squid wave it's tentacles about in the sunshine. Robert looked at his watch.

"Where are the other two at? It's almost time for the next class." Hayley shrugged and watched a fluffy white cloud drift by in the sky.

"I suppose still at the Quidditch field....Oh wait. Here they are." Robert squinted and saw Sarah and Gabriel, with interlocked forearms and skipping gaily through the grass. Robert raised his red eyebrows.

"I guess that means that the results of that experience was positive?" Hayley just stared. Finally the other two girls came to a skipping halt in front of Robert and Hayley.

"We made the Quidditch teams!" they cried at the same time. Robert smiled and was about to say something, but then, a gray castle with a black background passed over his eyes for a flicker of time. The other three must have seen it two, because Sarah and Gabriel stopped smiling, and Hayley's lip trembled for a moment. Gabriel looked up.

"Did you guys-"

A bell rang, and in the scampering of trying to get back to the school on time, the conversation that would have taken place, was forgotten.

# # #

Robert and Alex sprinted up the fifth out of seven flights of stairs to Professor Trelawney's turret classroom. Robert didn't particularly like this class, in fact, he loathed it, but as he had had no say in his class schedule (he had come in late and all of the good classes had been taken), he had no choice in the matter. Gripping the handrail firmly, Robert forced his burning muscles to carry him up the last flight of stairs.

"We're...almost...there..." panted Alex, dragging his bookbag behind him. Finally, they vaulted up onto the landing, and collapsed for a moment. Summoning all of his strength, Robert leapt up and grabbed the knotted, golden rope that opened the door to Professor Trelawney's domain. The silvery rope ladder appeared, and the twosome scampered up the magical ladder. 

The entire class turned to stare at them as they flung themselves up onto the wooden floor. Robert's ears turned pinker than they already were when their classmates stared, but then was swamped by the thick, smoky, tea-laced, sickly-sweet scent that always hung in the room like an invisible cloud. Robert felt himself becoming nauseated.

Alex dragged him off to a dark blue pouf that was swathed in some oriental-looking fabric. Just as Robert sank into it, Professor Trelawney made her usual dramatic entrance.

"Today," she said in her misty, far-off voice, "we will be working with the material objects from the divine realms; Tarot cards." Robert let his head hit his fist. This class was so stupid. 

Professor Trelawney passed out a black velvet box to each pair of students, Robert and Alex getting one that was particularly dusty.

"Use the books inside to find what the cards mean to you," she said dreamily. "And remember my children, to open your eyes past the logic of your worlds, and See!" Considering how Robert was all logic, he found this very funny indeed. Alex picked up the box and blew off a layer of dirt.

"You're going first," he ordered. Robert opened his mouth to protest, but Alex cut him off. "Nuh-uh. I was the one that had the palm reading last week, and that was enough for me." Robert smiled and thought of the day when Trelawney called Alex up in front of the class to read his palm. Poor Alex was totally humiliated when she told the entire class about his secret crush on Allison Mayor. Of course, he denied the whole thing. Robert decided to humor him.

"Oh, all right," he agreed sullenly. Alex grinned and handed him the deck of cards, which were backed with black, and had intricate golden designs on them. They reeked with age and shimmered with pale magic. Alex picked up the book and started reading the 'How to' section.

"Err, to find your inner spirit, no, what the? Ummm, okay, here it is. Shuffle the cards from your right hand to your left, thinking of your question - I guess you have to have a question - as you do so." Robert looked at the cards and started to shuffle them. His mind sorted through multiple questions, before the castle flashed before his vision again. 

All right, then, Tarot cards, Robert thought. If you're so great and future predicting tell me what the heck this castle is. Robert finished shuffling the cards.

Alex took them, and started laying them all out on the small coffee table in front of them. They were perfectly square cards, divided into fours at the corners, like wedges of pie. Each pie-shaped wedge had half of a picture on it. When all of the cards were lain out, Alex picked up the book again.

"All right now. When all the cards are lain out, make pictures out of them by swiveling them around, and fitting the matching pieces together like pieces to a puzzle. You may connect the pieces together in any way, but you may not move any cards. Okay then." Alex and Robert started matching the pie-shaped wedges together to make diamond-shaped pictures. When they were done, Robert had three pictures out of the whole lot. A ship, a shimmering cloud of rainbow colors, and what appeared to be a dark shadow looming out over an ever darker backdrop. Alex looked at the ship first.

"Lesse here...Um, card pair number 22....Position three...Here we go. It's the Quest card." Robert looked at the intricately painted ship, which was thrashing about on some violent waves. Alex cleared his throat and began to read.

"A Quest is seeking the physical manifestation of your goal. It is a card of journey in life. A True Quest brings purpose to ones life, it will lead you outward from the known and mundane, and into the Naguel, or the unknown. On this Quest there will be challenges to overcome and obstacles to hamper your process. The True Quest itself will teach you how to conquer these challenges.

"This card signals the onset of a journey or a trip. Look to the other cards in the spread for clarification. They might point to the direction of the path that you will travel, or might point to someone monumental along the way.

"When you pull this card it is a signal to get your bearings and think about where you are in the relationship to where you want to be. It tells of a time of changes or a journey. Keep an open mind. New adventures await you." Alex looked over the edge of the book and smirked.

"What a load of crack. Well, onto the next one. Card pair number 14.." he pointed towards the card with the shadowy figure on it, and leafed through the contents of the book. While he did so, Robert swallowed. A Quest? What did that have to do with the dark castle? Alex interrupted his thoughts.

"Ick. You're not going to like this one Robert: Death." Robert swallowed, and felt the hair on his arms prickle. Alex cleared his throat and read on.

"Death is Life. The end of one this is always the beginning of another. Winter dies and becomes Spring. Death is part of the eternal cycle. Without any Death, there could be no Life.

"To truly understand your Life, you must understand your Death. Death is our only true advisor and out greatest teacher. It teaches that our body is only the vehicle of our consciousness, that we are both mortal and immortal.

"Understanding this card in a spread depends on the spread, the cards, and the question you present to the deck itself. Look to the surrounding symbols to provide the answers you seek. This card always indicates a change - but on what scale depends on the card itself." Robert felt frozen, sick and pale. Alex must have noticed, because he looked concerned.

"Robert? Are you okay? You're not taking this seriously, are you? It's just Tarot cards. What question did you ask?" Feeling suddenly cold and empty, Robert shook his head.

"I'm fine." His voice sounded distant, like Professor Trelawney often did. "Please continue." Hands shaking, Alex turned to find the meaning of the last card in Robert's spread.

"Err, position four, card pair 48....Gift of Magic." Robert blinked in confusion. A Gift of Magic? Alex cleared his throat wearily.

"Anything you perceive as a Magical Gift is one. Whatever gives you hope, courage, inspiration, or insenentive is a gift from the Spirit. A Magical Gift is something that arrives in the nick of time, when you need it most. It can be a helping hand at just the right moment, or a clue to solve your mystery.

"Magical Gifts are often received on a Quest. Should the Quest card appear in this same spread, it may be a signal that a Magical gift is forthcoming. When it appears, be assured that the path you take is the correct one. Remember to show proper thanks to the Spirit if this is the case.

"This card tells you to be open to the Spirit. The aid you need is out there; the boon you need on your journey is waiting for you. This card tells you to take heart. Things will work out, and there is no time like the present. Relax and be confident. If the path you are on is right for you, the door to success is open." Alex was shaking visibly when he put the book down. Robert had gone very pale and ghostly looking. Cold sweat dotted his forehead, and he appeared frozen and statue-like.

"Robert?" he asked nervously. Robert didn't answer. He was too deep within his own thoughts to hear. A Quest, with Death and a Gift of Magic? What did this mean? What did this have to do with the castle he kept on seeing? Why couldn't the Tarot cards be more concrete? Why couldn't they have follow up sources? 

"I wish this subject wasn't so damn foggy," he whispered. Noticing that Alex looked scared, he smiled.

"Don't worry about it, Alex. This stuff is all stupid and fake anyhow. Let's do you now." Robert rolled his eyes in the back of his head. Alex bit on the fake, and smiled with relief.

"I'm going to ask if Allison Mayor and I are going to get together!" Robert laughed along with him, but the castle was still in his mind, along with the ominous warning the Tarot cards seemed to be giving him.

# # #

While Tarot cards were transfixing Robert up in the Divination tower, Gabriel and Sarah were having a perfectly normal day down in the Potions dungeon. Gabriel was adding more black beetle legs to her Parchment-strengthening Potion, when a messenger came in, with about five slips of parchment in his right hand.

"Yes?" snapped Snape. The young boy swallowed, and held out the parchment.

"These," the boy gasped, "are from Professor Dumbledore, sir. They are the Quidditch schedules for this year." Snape took the rolls of parchment and nodded. The boy left.

Gabriel stopped counting unicorn hairs to look at the schedule, to see when the first game was. Gabriel dropped her stirrer on the ground in surprise. There, a week from today, in glossy maroon writing, were the words: Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, 4:15. Gabriel stared. The biggest rivalry of the school, her first game! She caught Sarah's eyes, and they said the same thing. Sarah looked down at her schedule, which was in a shiny hunter green. Another thought crept into her mind: What if she had to hit a bludger at Gabriel? She had a strong arm, everybody said so, and she didn't want to hurt Gabriel, but she didn't want to be looked upon as a traitor by her fellow Slytherins. Draco jogged her arm with his elbow.

"Our first game! You can show Potter and his little friends that arm of yours, Sarah!" Sarah swallowed.

"Smashing," she said back to him. "And if I club someone's head in, it'll really be smashing." Sprite flitted off of Draco's shoulder, and landed in Sarah's tangle of black hair. Draco looked up from his potion.

"We'll have to get you a proper broom....My father can take care of that," he babbled on excitedly. Sarah looked at Gabriel, who was throwing unicorn hairs into her frothing potion.

"What about Gabriel? She doesn't have a broom either." Draco shrugged and started to stir his thick potion.

"The Gryffindors can scrape together funds for her own broom. That's not our problem." Sarah bit her lip, at a loss of words for once. First it was being transported here, then Gabriel, Hayley and Robert, and then the classes themselves, now it was Quidditch rivalry, and the mysterious gray castle that she kept on seeing. Sarah sighed and threw in some shimmering bahera powder into the bubbling mess of her potion. She watched the glistening particles float and dance around in the air before falling into the potion.

Would life ever be simple again?

Author's note: Well, we're getting somewhere? Did you like the Tarot reading? It's actually a real reading from a real book. Well, yes, *next* chapter, you will find out what the castle is, and you will get the details on the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin. I *would* have done it this chapter, but, it was getting *way* too long as it was. Pay attention to your Tarot cards, people! Heh heh heh...

~Moxie ^_^

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, I didn't make up the Tarot card set that I got Robert's reading from, I got Sarah's quote (The strongest of the weak with triumph over the weakest of the strong) from some other fanfic (not on this site!) and well, I don't own much, actually -_-....

But, however, I do own Sarah, Hayley, Robert and Gabriel, I own Alex, Essex, Alanya, and Rosemary, (I know they weren't mentioned much in this chapter, but, they will come into play later on, be patient!) I also own Sprite.

Please, *please* *please* *PLEASE* review! I need to know what you think! Suggestions are wonderful! In fact, I owe part of the plot to the next chapter to Sierra, (Luv ya, sweetie! ((you know what I mean by that, you weird people out there.))) If you have any suggestions or ideas on how the next part should go, by all means, send them to me! They will be regarded, (and probably used, as long as they don't get in the way of the plot of the storyline I have already.) I will also give you credit for the idea, if you so desire. ^_^ 


	5. What Is That Castle, Anyway?

Gabriel woke up late that Saturday. She didn't know what, but there was something big that was going to happen soon, but in the early-morning haze of her mind, she couldn't think of it. It wasn't a test, the exams weren't for a couple of months...Wait, and it was the Quidditch game that Tuesday. Three days away. Gabriel wasn't too sure she was exactly ready for that. Standing up, she felt so lightheaded that she had to sit back on the bed, save herself from falling.

Chiding herself on the fact that she had been eating too much and not exercising enough, she stood up, and went to the showers. Her friend Alanya interrupted her progress, handing her a large parcel of red cloth and a small white package along with it. Gabriel stared at it, but before she could answer, Alanya started dragging her towards the showers.

"You need to get out to the Quidditch field! They have practice today, and it starts in- " she looked at her watch "-five minutes! Get dressed. Eat your breakfast! Hurry up!" Looking down at the two packages she held in her hand, she noticed that the large red one was a crimson Quidditch robe, and the smaller one had some fruit in it. Gabriel started as she looked at the clock in the common room. 

"Crap!" she exclaimed, using a quote that she had gotten off of Sarah. "I didn't know it was so blasted late!" With that, Gabriel Gryffindor jammed a kiwi in her mouth and sprinted towards the showers.

# # #

"Sarah! Sarah Slytherin! For the last time, _get up_!" Sarah blearily opened one gray eye to study the person that had woken her up so rudely. She nearly fell out of the bed when she saw it was Draco Malfoy. She rocketed awake at once, and looked at him.

"Just what in the name of Hades do you think you're doing?" she screamed indignantly. Draco winced. "This is the _girl's_ dormitory!" she finished. Draco sighed.

"I happen to be perfectly _aware_ of that," he snapped back. "I just thought you'd like to know, that Father is downstairs, waiting for us, and he doesn't like to wait!" 

Sarah blinked. "Why is your father here?" she asked. Sprite the butterfly flitted in and landed on Sarah's green blanket. Draco sighed.

"Remember? He's going to buy you a broom, and new Quidditch robes? You know," he said, explaining it to Sarah as if she was not bright, "for the game on Tuesday?" Sarah did remember.

"Your father doesn't have to buy me anything. I can ride one of the school brooms, and wear an old uniform. I don't like charity," she snapped at him. He sighed.

"Charity or not, you're taking it if I have to drag you. Get dressed," he commanded, and left. 

Sarah groaned and reached for a clean robe that lay wadded at the bottom of her bed. Pulling it on, she shrugged. At least she'd look good for the Quidditch game on Tuesday. She laced up her boots, drug her fingers through her hair (she couldn't find her brush) and wrestled her curls into a high ponytail/really bad looking bun. Sprite flew up and settled in her hair, and she galloped down the stairs.

Sarah was quite afraid when she hit the bottom of the stairs. Draco was there, and right next to him was a figure that could have been his twin, save he was a older and a little taller. The figure had the same color hair; eyes, the same complexion, same thin lips, same slight-sneer, and he even carried himself with the same swagger that Draco had. Sarah snorted with a bit of laughter.

"I can't see the family resemblance," she said, sarcastically. Draco raised his eyebrows, as did the figure, which made it harder for Sarah to control her laughter. She had to bite her lip until she almost made it bleed to keep her composure. The taller figure stuck out his hand for a handshake.

"I have the honor to be Mr. Lucius Malfoy," he said with a slight drawl to his voice, connecting him to Draco's demeanor even more. "I suppose that you would be Miss Slytherin?" 

Sarah took Lucius's hand and totally spoiled the moment by slapping him on the side with her free hand. "Nice to meet you too, Luke. I gotta go brush my teeth, so I don't fumigate y'all with my breath. And, I ain't nuthin but Sarah, so you can drop all the formal yatter," she said. 

Draco groaned. He knew that Sarah was being overly American just to annoy his father, and his father did not like to be annoyed. Sarah walked by Draco, grabbed his shoulder and smacked him on the back a little too hard.

"'Mornin, Sweetheart." Sarah left. Lucius raised an eyebrow at his son, feeling rather amused.

"Sweetheart?" he asked. Draco blushed.

"She calls everyone that, Father." Lucius Malfoy just shook his head and looked disdainfully at the doorway that Sarah had just exited out of.

"It's kind of sad where the honorable blood of Slytherin has dwindled down to at this modern date and time. I don't even know if she knows much about the noble bloodline to which she belongs..." he trailed off thoughtfully.

Sarah came back in. "I'm ready!" she called cheerfully. Lucius Malfoy nodded, and the threesome left the building.

# # #

Hayley and Robert, seeing that they had nothing else better to do, followed Gabriel out to the Quidditch field, to watch her practice. Hayley was all pins and needles.

"I don't know what to do!" she squealed. "I don't want to cheer for Sarah, and hurt Gabriel's feelings, but I don't want to cheer for Gabriel and hurt Sarah's feelings either!"

Robert just sighed. "I think that you're being a little too uptight about this, Hayley. It's just a game. I don't think you're going to hurt anyone's feelings, no matter what you do. Still, if it bothers you that much, you can just remain neutral." 

"But I want to show school spirit!"

Robert sighed, and was about to answer, when Gabriel came flying up.

"Hey you guys, Sarah's over there. Let's go say hi," and with that, she flew off to go see Sarah. Robert looked at Hayley.

"See? She's not taking it that seriously, and neither should you," he said a tad smugly. He got up, offered a hand to Hayley, and they both went over to where the two were conversing.

Draco knew he was in for it when he heard Gabriel calling for Sarah, in her red Quidditch robes. Sarah stopped and smiled.

"Hey Gabriel! What's up? Ready for the match on Tuesday?" As soon as she said that, Lucius Malfoy nearly went off his tack.

"WHAT?! You mean that a player on the Gryffindor team is...is a friend of Sarah Slytherin?!?" Draco swallowed, and turned paler than usual. Gabriel was in earshot when Mr. Malfoy made this irate remark, saw the look on Draco's face, and made a decision.

"Friends? With her?!" Gabriel asked, trying to sound shocked and as disgusted as she possibly could. Sarah was a bit taken aback for a moment, but then saw the pleading look in Draco's eyes, and the laughter in Gabriel's brown ones, and Sarah put on her most evil look she could do without laughing.

"Know yourself, know your enemy, and you shall triumph!" she quoted from an old Chinese book about war. "I'm going to get a new broom, and I hope you and your shoddy skills can manage to come in a close second to the Slytherin superiority!" she was speaking at random, and was having a good time making theatrical quotes up as she went. Gabriel's eyes twinkled.

"Whatever, Snake Girl. You may have the fastest broom in the world, but they can't outwit the Gryffindor chivalry!" she flew back. Sarah grinned, and herself, Draco and Lucius walked off. Draco pulled Sarah behind his father by her sleeve.

"Thanks. I owe you." Sarah grinned and mussed his hair up.

"Nah. That was fun. I'd do it again."

# # #

In a few moments (they Appearated) Sarah found herself on the golden cobblestone road that she had bought her wand on. Smiling, she followed the two Malfoys down the road until they came to a broom shop. They went inside.

It was a small room, basically deserted of people, but crammed full of brooms off all colors, shapes and sizes. A man sat at a cluttered desk, scratching out something with a slightly flattened quill. He looked up as soon as the three entered, and gave a smile.

He was a pudgy, bald man, with two small beady blue eyes that crinkled with kindness and were hidden under a mask of reddish facial hair. He reminded Sarah something of a fatter, older version of Robert. The man scuttled up to them and bowed slightly.

"Mr. Malfoy, Young Mr. Malfoy, and ....Miss Malfoy, perhaps?" Sarah and Draco blushed slightly, and Sarah shook her head so vigorously that Sprite squeaked with complaint.

"No. I'm Sarah Slytherin. Yes, Sarah Slytherin. Yes, relation to the Hogwarts founder. No, I don't want to talk about it." The old man's eyes danced with genuine laughter.

"That's all right, Miss Slytherin. Are you the one that Mr. Malfoy is buying for? My name is Mr. Kindlebark, by the way." He hustled through this, and Sarah smiled. She decided that she liked Mr. Kindlebark. Mr. Malfoy, however, didn't look pleased.

"Enough introductions all ready. Just show her the merchandise." Mr. Kindlebark nodded and bustled Sarah and crew to the back of the store.

"I've got a nice selection here today, and I believe that I can find something that will suit you well, Miss Slytherin. I've just gotten in a new shipment of Nimbus 2001, but, I also have a some nice, new prototype brooms that I think you might like." He produced a box and opened it.

The broom had a dark handle, probably ebony wood, with very light straws, that had little white strands of magic slithering in-between the straws, like snakes. At the top of the handle, engraved in tiny silver letters, were the words 'Cloudburst 4550'. 

"This is the Cloudburst four-thousand-five-hundred-and-fifty, and it's the newest in state of the art design," said Mr. Kindlebark, sounding as if he had swallowed a tape recording. "It has auto-brake, a top speed of ninety miles per hour, and handling smoother than butter. It's three hundred gallons," he finished. Sarah gasped, but Mr. Malfoy just sighed and dug into his pocket. 

"I'll take two," he said. Sarah was about to protest, but Draco stopped her.

"Don't worry about the cost. Just shut up," he told her firmly. Sarah shrugged. She wasn't used to being splurged on like this, but she could adapt.

Next stop was Madame Milkin's robe shop, where Sarah was fitted for some sleek green robes. Sarah was enjoying herself immensely by the time that this was all over with. 

"Thanks, Luke," she said to Mr. Malfoy on occasion of getting an armful of dark green cloth. Mr. Malfoy stiffened when she addressed him in that manner, but he said nothing. 

A flick of a wand later, Sarah, Mr. Malfoy and Draco disappeared.

# # #

Hayley was lying on the grass with Gabriel and Robert, just staring at the clouds as they floated by. She blinked and shook her head when a cloud that was shaped like a castle floated by. The visions of that castle were becoming more and more frequent, as well as more vivid every single time she saw it. She was beginning to wonder if she should report it to somebody, when a large shadowy shape blocked her. The large shadowy shape was Sarah, and she was beaming.

"I got loads of stuff! If I hang out with the Malfoys for too long, they'll spoil me rotten!" she seemed genuinely pleased at the idea of being spoiled rotten, like it was some big treat. 

"Sarah," Hayley groaned. "You're blocking my sun." Sarah, still grinning largely, settled down on the soft grass with the other four, put her arms behind her head and reclined.

The vision came for Hayley again. The large gray castle, looming over a brown, treeless moor, with rain and lightning falling down....The windows glowed with an eerie, evil purple sheen...The entire area reeked the foul stench of the Dark Arts....Thunder boomed....Wolves howled to the point that it was almost like a house in a scary movie. But, this wasn't a movie, it was real....

Hayley sat up with a start, shivering despite the sunshine outside. She noticed that the other four were doing the same thing. Now was the time to voice her worry. Hayley swallowed hard and spoke.

"You...you guys...didn't happen to...to...see...see anything....odd, did you?" she squeaked, not finding the right words for it. Gabriel, who was toying with a blade of grass, looked up.

"Does it have anything to do with a castle?" Hayley was leaning on her palms when Gabriel said this, and her elbows caved in on her. Sarah, who was clutching her broom like a doll, dropped it, and Robert went deathly pale.

"You've been seeing it too?" whispered Sarah. Even though there was nobody in the premises, she was afraid of someone listening in.

Hayley nodded. "Ever since the first day of class..." she said, remembering the dark castle she had seen in her potion. Robert looked up.

"I....I had a Tarot reading done on that, with Alex..." The three girls looked at each other with suprised shock in their eyes. Robert was so down to earth, that they never expected him to buy into that kind of stuff. He looked up.

"I got three pairs on it; The Quest, Gift of Magic, and...and Death. The cards told me that I was to go an an adventure, get a helpful gift along the way, and have some drastic change in my life....I don't know if it was true or not....Divination is so foggy and fakey...." he trailed off into nothing. Hayley shook her head.

"Divination is so imprecise, it could all just be a coincidence..." Sarah snorted, and Hayley braced herself for a lashing from Sarah's tongue.

"Yeah. Right. We've all been seeing big scary castles from the moment we've been here, we've all been seeing the castles at the same time, Robert gets this freaky message from some magical cards, and it's all a coincidence." Hayley winced at the sharpest edge of Sarah's tongue.

Gabriel propped her head up on her fists. "What we need is a more....more professional opinion," she said matter-of-factly. Robert looked over at her.

"Remember the day we got our wands? Didn't Dumbledore say something about the greatest Prophet of all time, Sybille Sandstone?"

There was silence for a few moments, until Hayley stood up, shaking her head vigorously.

"No. Nuh-uh. There is no way in heck," she protested feebly. Three pairs of eyes stared back at her balefully.

"Do you have any better ideas?" asked Robert, calmly. Hayley shook out her robes and with a sigh, plopped back onto the earth.

"But...but we don't even know where she lives. And this would cost money," she said, trying to stop this idea even before it started. Sarah shrugged.

"Well, Robert over there is the Human Dictionary, he could look it up for us," Sarah pointed out. Robert glared at her, but said nothing. To a certain degree, it was true.

"And I'm sure we could scrape up enough money somehow," Gabriel pointed out. "Isn't that Malfoy kid rich? Sarah could just mooch something off of him." 

Hayley felt like she was being cornered. "But...but how will we get there?" The other three looked at each other.

"Those Weasley kids seem to know an awful lot about ways to sneak out of the school. I might be able to talk something off of them," Gabriel said. Hayley still looked worried. Robert sighed.

"Look, Hayley," he said, "do you want to spent the rest of the term - or the school year - having visions about a castle? If we do get caught, it's a month's detention, tops." Hayley stared. It was so unlike Robert to want to break rules that she almost started to laugh. But, even more than Robert was a good student, he hated things he didn't understand. This must be one of those times where the unknown triumphs over the common sense, Hayley thought bitterly.

"Oh, all right, " Hayley said reluctantly. "Where do we start?" 

# # #

Inbetween cramming for the Transfiguration quiz that was tomorrow, Robert leafed through a volume about recent Prophets and Seers. It was very difficult, as there were so many lady prophets named Sybille, Sibil, Sibyl, Sybill, or Sibill, it wasn't funny. After leafing through five books without finding anything more than historical information on Sybille Sandstone, Robert began to get frustrated.

He slammed the last book shut, which sent up a cloud of dust, making him sneeze. Madam Pierce gave him a piercing stare over her spectacles, and went back to reading through a very large book with long spindling letters in another language.

Robert blushed and drummed his fingers on top of a book, wondering what to do next. That when the 'Restricted Section' caught his eye. He leaned forward. He knew for a fact that those books told about the location of some witches and wizards, but to get to them was a problem. You needed a note from a teacher.

Robert cursed under his breath. He didn't know how he was going to get a note from a teacher, unless he had a really good alibi. He didn't, and he wasn't a good liar in the first place. But, what about forgery?

He had always been good with a quill, and now was just the time to test those skills. Opening his bookbag, he took out the late pass he had gotten from Trelawney the week before. He was now glad he kept it. Looking at the very loopy script and nearly illegible signature, he sighed, and quietly took out parchment, ink and a quill.

Carefully unscrewing the lid on the ink, Robert wet the tip of the quill. Flexing his fingers, he carefully started to copy the writing.

__

I have given Robert Ravenclaw permission to check out the book titled:

Famous Witches, Wizards, and Their Locations

For an extra credit project.

Sybill Trelawney

It was sweet and short, to the point. The way Robert wanted it. He was positive of the book name, he had used it before, and the forgery was almost the exact same. But still...

Robert took out his eagle wand and pointed it at the parchment. "Conmistment!" he whispered. A bluish strand whipped out of the eagle's beak and dowsed the parchment. The edges crinkled in, the slight wavers in the loops vanished. 'Conmistment' was a forgery fixing spell that he had overheard from some Slytherin seventh year, and was thanking his lucky stars that he had his ears on sharp that day. Now the only matter was getting through the lie without screwing up. Smoothing out his robes, he stood up and swaggered over to Madam Pierce. 

"Madam, I need a book from the Restricted Section," he said as tonelessly as possible. Pierce took the parchment into her hands and looked it over. Robert's knees felt like they were going to buckle in at any moment, and his ears were roaring with shame and nervousness.

"All right, this seems to be in order. Follow me," Madam Pierce walked briskly into the dark, almost unused Restricted Section. Robert sighed with relief. 

Pierce led him through a couple of bookshelves before pulling out a large, leather-bound book with silver script on the front, in writing that Robert couldn't read. She blew on it, and the letters rearranged themselves into English. She handed it to him, and he quickly scuttled away from Madam Pierce's gazing stare.

In the safety of his seat, Robert flipped through the entire book until he found the page on Sybille Sandstone.

__

Sybille Sandstone

Said by many to be the greatest Seer of all time, she has

received many awards for predicting critical future events,

such as wars, global catrosphies, and plagues.

She also set up the first school for those gifted with the Inner

Eye: The Seminary for the Seeing enhanced.

Sybille now lives in a quaint cottage at the edge of the town

of Hogsmeade.

Hogsmeade? Robert blinked. But that was so close! Robert smiled. This might be easier than they thought it would be. He looked for a piece of parchment to copy it down onto, only to find that he had none left. Sighing miserably, he looked over at the yellowed page. He could just memorize it, but the girls would probably want to read it. Madam Pierce seemed to be otherwise occupied, so he took a deep breath and tore the page out of the book.

Shutting the book hurriedly, Robert gave the book back to Madame Pierce, thanked her, and basically left the library at a sprint.

# # #

Gabriel's part in all of this was to find a way out of the school, and she knew that she needed to find the Masters of Mischief to help her out; George and Fred Weasley. She found them in the Herbology hallway, strategically placing Dungbombs in various niches, so when Flitch walked down his patrol, they would all go off at once. Gabriel walked up.

"Fred, George, when are you ever going to grow up?" One of the twins - Gabriel thought it was George - turned away from his work long enough to flash her a boyish smile.

"Whenever Freddie over there does," he said before turning back to stuffing a bomb in a mousehole. Gabriel sighed and started.

"I need to find a way out of the school," she said, carefully choosing her words so they wouldn't get too suspicious or nosey. Both boys turned around at once.

"Really?" Fred asked, eyes dancing with amusement. "So Gryffindor has finally decided to drop the good-girl image. You've come to the right place, young Jedi," he finished, bowing comically. Gabriel rolled her eyes. Sarah had given the twins the spiel on Star Wars a couple of weeks ago, and now they were quite in an obsession with it. George sported a mock-serious look for a few seconds.

"You think we can trust her, Fred? I mean, the secret passages are top secret, you know," Gabriel knew that George didn't mean it, but she also knew that a little bribery didn't hurt things any. She stuck her hand in her pocket, and withdrew a small key ring that had three or four silvery metal poles on it. Twirling it around her finger, she spoke.

"These are muggle lockpicks. They're yours if you show me a passage," Fred squinted at the shiny lockpicks.

"What good will they do? We know all the unlocking charms invented, and you can just use a hairpin for the rest," he pointed out. Gabriel sighed.

"You can block locking charms, and hairpins take forever, I know from personal experience. These babies, on the other hand, only take a couple of seconds to use, and most wizards don't think of blocking muggle lockpicks. You can use them to get into Filch's 'Confiscated and Highly Dangerous' drawer, and if you play your cards right, he won't know the difference." Fred and George looked at each other, thinking on the glorious pranks they could pull off with the lockpick's help.

"You've got yourself a deal!" George said with a big smile on his face. Gabriel smiled back and tossed him the ring of picks. He and his twin looked them over excitedly for a couple of moments, before Fred looked up.

"Now, where were you looking to go with your passage?" he inquired. Gabriel sighed and thought. She didn't know where Sybille Sandstone lived yet, so she thought she would play it safe and go for something general.

"Nowhere in particular. Just out of the school would be nice," she said, as vaguely as possible. Fred and George bit their lips and looked at the ceiling for a couple of moments before speaking.

"What about the one on the second floor? That one just leads out of the castle, but, it's right in the way of Filch's midnight rounds though."

"The one under the tapestry is a nice one, but Flich knows about that one, I'm sure...." Gabriel waited impatiently until the two stopped thinking out loud. Then George snapped his fingers together.

"The one on the-"

"Fourth floor," Fred finished, eyes sparkling mischievously. He nodded at Gabriel. "Come on, Gabby." Gabriel followed the two red-heads up several flights of stairs, through a tapestry, and though a false wall to a small corridor that held some of the teacher's private offices and such in it. George turned to Fred.

"Stand guard, will ya, Fred?" Fred complied, and George started knocking his knuckles against the wall.

"The thing about this one," he muttered more to himself than to Gabriel or anyone else, "is that the location is so bloody obvious, that no one ever thought to look for it..." He trailed off, still tapping the glossy paneled wall. Finally, he hit upon one that sounded a little hollow. George put a fingernail along the edge of the panel, and slid it into the wall. Inside the one-panel thick hole was gaping darkness.

"Lumos," Gabriel said, waving her lion-head wand around. It lit up, and Gabriel peered into the darkness.

There was a short, two-foot long hallway that was as wide as the panel itself, but then it opened up into a small little room that was maybe three yards by three yards. Walking in a little bit, Gabriel saw that then there was a flight of stairs, made out of crumbling stone, that went up into more darkness.

"It's not very safe," George said from behind her, "but it goes out of the school, around to where the Quidditch field is." Gabriel nodded, and walked out.

"It's perfect. Thank you." Fred, back from his lookout, grinned and showed Gabriel the lockpicks.

"No, thank you," he said. With that, George put the panel back into place, and he and his twin left Gabriel in the hallway, squealing over the lockpicks. Gabriel sighed, and left to go find the others.

# # #

Hayley twirled a strand of her hair around her finger. She was so nervous she couldn't stand it. If they were caught doing this, than....Well, if that happened, she'd think about it then. Hayley and Sarah were in a small off-parlor in a little cubbyhole by the Front Hall. Hayley slid farther down on the victorian-style bench she was sitting on. It wasn't very comfortable in the first place, and besides the fact, she had been sitting on it for over an hour. Across a coffee table that was in the middle of the room sat Sarah, in a high backed chair, with her legs swung up over the armrests, picking at a loose thread. She looked positively angry.

Hayley smiled. Knowing the raven-haired girl as well as she did, she knew that Sarah hated sitting on the sidelines; just waiting. She was more of a person to rush headlong into things, without thinking, all for the action. Hayley, on the other hand was a more patient person, more willing to wait before she acted. In fact, Hayley would be perfectly content to forget the entire castle thing and live normally again. But, that wouldn't happen.

Sarah and Hayley perked up at the sound of pattering feet. A few seconds later, Robert came in, with a yellow sheet of paper clutched in his right hand. He had obviously been running, and he plopped in the seat next to Sarah with a heavy sigh. 

Soon after that, Gabriel came striding in the room, at a more dignified pace than Robert had exhibited, but, still looked a bit flushed. She sat on the bench next to Hayley, and nobody said anything, until Sarah spoke.

"Did anybody find anything?" Robert nodded, and waved the hand with the parchment on it. Still keeling over from lack of breath, he handed it to Sarah, intending for her to read it. Sarah snatched it up and read, her lips moving along with the words. When she had finished, her face was quite pale.

"She lives in Hogsmeade?! But...but that's so....so close!" Hayley and Gabriel were obviously as shell-shocked as she was. Hayley swallowed, and spoke.

"Before we do anything...stupid, we need a way out of the school," she said calmly, her face turning rather gray. Gabriel cleared her throat.

"Done. I got a passage out of the Doublemint twins," she said, motioning her hands towards the Gryffindor common room. "It cost me a pretty penny, too. Those lockpicks were some of my best ones." Robert, who had caught his breath, looked up.

"What about money? I'm sure that Sybille doesn't run a charity." The foursome was silent for a moment, before Gabriel spoke up again.

"Hey, Sarah," she started. Sarah looked up, knowing what she was going to say before she even said it. "Doesn't that pretty-boy-blonde-head-butterfly-guy have a lot of money?" Gabriel asked. Sarah sighed, and shook her head.

"Yes. But I'm not going to go mooching for money," she finished stubbornly. Gabriel sighed and rubbed her temple.

"What would you say to taking it from him? He wouldn't know the difference."

Sarah was silent.

# # #

The next morning went as usual, as it always had for Draco Malfoy. He got up, got dressed, and got ready for breakfast as normal. His adopted butterfly, Sprite, flitted onto his shoulder, and they were going to go down to breakfast, when he noticed Sarah sitting in a chair. Over the last couple of months, Draco had really grown rather fond of the dark-haired girl and her sharp tongue. His father of course was another story, but for right now, he didn't have to deal with his father.

"Hello, Sarah. Good morning." Sarah seemed to start in her chair uncomfortably, Draco noticed. "Is something wrong?" 

Sarah shook her head. "No. But I have a headache. Which reminds me, I've got some medicine in my bag. I'll be a little late for breakfast, if you don't mind." Draco nodded curtly.

"Of course not. See you in a while, then." He watched Sarah trudge up the stairs, not quite thinking of the fact that Sarah never carried any medicine on her. But he shrugged, supposed that it was none of his business, and left.

Up in the privacy in her room, Sarah withdrew the ring of lockpicks that Gabriel had given her last night. She felt so guilty for this.

"Some way to repay your friends, Sarah," she muttered to herself. "Stealing. You're some great, considerate person." When she was sure that nobody else was left, she tiptoed down the stairs.

As it was almost a half-hour into breakfast, the Slytherin common room was deserted, and she could only hope that the boy's dormitory was the same way. It was.

Looking through the beds, she was hoping to find something that could tell her which one was Draco's bed. She found it when she saw the trunk with the initials 'DM' on the front. Sighing miserably, she dropped to her knees in front of the trunk and withdrew her lockpicks. 

Inserting two into the lock, she wriggled them around in the keyhole until it popped open. Opening the trunk, all she saw a first was a mess of unfolded black robes. Grimacing, she gingerly started to pull out the garments until they were all in a heap on her left side. What was left now was a book, a piece of parchment, a few small purple velvet sacks, and what looked like a slip of white paper. Curious, she picked up the slip of paper.

It was a very old, creased black-and-white photo of a young man and a baby looking merrily up at them. Both were smiling. Both were waving. Sarah could only assume that this was Draco and Lucius, so she put it back. Then the piece of parchment caught her eye. She was about to read it, when she stopped.

"Sarah Slytherin," she chided herself. "You have no right to invade his private things. It's terrible enough that you're going to steal his money." The prospect of stealing Draco's money was bad enough in the first place when she was just thinking about it. It was worse saying it out loud.

Picking up one of the velvet bags, she opened it and found a small fortune in Sickles, Knuts, and Galleons. Taking it, which she stuffed into the inner pocket of her robe, she hurriedly threw everything back in, and locked the lock.

Feeling like a full-time criminal, she looked morosely at the trunk. She noticed that the picture had fallen out. She started to put it back in, but then she had an inspiration.

"Savuier Marader," she whispered, tapping the picture. The creases smoothed out, the picture was no longer so blurry. Feeling a tad bit better, she tossed the picture on the bed and went back downstairs.

# # #

Robert picked at his food nervously, looking at the Slytherin table. The seat normally occupied by Sarah was still vacant. With the Quidditch game tomorrow, emotions were running very high, most of them with eminity towards the Slytherins. Robert couldn't figure out for the life of him why. In his opinion, it was quite stupid to hate someone just because they were in another house, or over a rivalry between two men that had died about a thousand years ago.

"Robert? Earth to Robert? Do you read me?" It was Alex, and he was worried. Ever since his Tarot card reading, Robert had not been acting like Robert. He had been more distant, misty-like. But now he jolted back to his living senses.

"Huh? I'm fine." In reality, he really wasn't fine, he was jittery, nervous and sweaty, but he thought better than worrying Alex about it.

Sarah entered the hall, as quietly as she could, but it was so bloody loud in there, that she could have entered banging pots and pans and nobody would have done so much as wink an eyebrow.

Gabriel noticed her entrance and motioned her over. Sarah came over, reluctantly so. When she got there, several of the Gryffindors glared at her for being a Slytherin (and for that matter, a Slytherin on the Quidditch team), and having the gusto to approach the table at that date and time. They kept on glaring, until Sarah made them stop.

"What?! I know I'm beautiful, but take a picture, cause it'll last longer!" The Gryffindors stopped staring, and Gabriel grabbed her friend's sleeve.

"Well?" she whispered. Sarah sighed and gave Gabriel back her lockpicks.

"I got the cash," she said miserably. "We need to get the rest of the Peanut Gallery over here so we can talk about it," she said, meaning Hayley and Robert. Gabriel sighed.

"Well, today's Sunday, so I have Transfigurations, you have Astrology, I know Robert has Arithmancy, and I believe that Hayley has Herbology. I have Quidditch practice from 3:00 to 4:30, and from that, don't you have Quidditch practice today too?" she asked. Sarah sighed and rubbed the back of her neck.

"From 5:00 till 6:30, and then dinner is at 7:00..." Sarah swore, making several of the Gryffindors glare at her again, but Sarah paid them no heed. "And it'll probably be another hour before we finish eating and get to the Cubby." The Cubby was their nickname for the small parlor that they always met in. Gabriel sighed and calculated quickly in her head.

"So, it'll probably be around 8:00 before anything goes anywhere," Gabriel finished sighing. The rest of the table, who was downwind of the conversation, looked up. None of them had any idea about what was going on between their Quidditch 'Keeper and the Slytherin Beater, but it interested them nevertheless.

"Shall we go tell the Human Dictionary and Hayley?" asked Sarah, using her favorite nickname for Robert and his brains. Gabriel nodded.

"Yes." They went off to the other tables, leaving the Gryffindors suspicious and a little afraid about what the two were planning.

# # #

Hayley sighed, snapping off dead twigs of a Bringola Iris, which had a lot of pollen in it and made Hayley sneeze. Rosemary offered her a handkerchief, which Hayley took gratefully. 

"You know, you sound like you're allergic to this," Rosemary pointed out. I could finish it if you want." Hayley blew her nose, wiped her watering eyes and shook her head.

"I'll be fine," she said with a very stuffy sounding voice. "There's not that much left anyway." Rosemary shrugged and pulled off a dead leaf. She lowered her voice to an excited whisper, and spoke.

"It's my birthday the day after tomorrow, and my parents got me a present. They told me to share it with you," she said with a sly tilt to her voice.

"Rosie, you know you don't have to do that," Hayley said, using her pet name for Rosemary and blushing a bit. Rosemary started to clear some dirt away from the tender roots of the plant before answering.

"I know I don't but I want to." Making sure that Sprout was nowhere in sight, she reached into her pocket and extracted a tiny jar, about the size that lip balm was found in, and flipped it to Hayley. Hayley snuck a glance at it.

It was filled with a white, semi-solid, gel-type matter, and had little sparkling dots in it, that looked a lot like finely ground gold. Hayley unscrewed the lid and took a smell, getting her nostrils filled with a burning scent that made her eyes water worse than they already were. Rosemary snorted with laughter, her pink eyes showing her glee.

"You smell the Oclocka root. It's Invisibility cream. Very expensive, and very hard to make. But, we get all the ingredients for free off of our farm, and nothing's too hard for my parents to make," she finished, swelling with pride. Hayley grinned. Rosemary's family was a great source of pride for her, and she planned on taking over the potion business when she got older.

"So, how do you use it?" Hayley asked, putting the jar safely in her pocket. Rosemary sighed, putting mulch in the pot of the plant.

"You just take a smidgen of it and smear it on your nose. There's not a lot in there, but it'll last a while. It's a lot of fun, and when you're done with it, you just wipe it off," she said, smiling. Hayley smiled back, knowing what help the cream would be.

# # # 

Tick-tock. Tick tock. Robert watched the clock as it's second hand slowly swiveled around its face. Professor Victor droned on and on, but it just wasn't penetrating Robert's skull for some reason. He looked at his notes.

Arithmancy was evolved from the early types of muggle math, but was perfected and magicked by Simion the Smart......

His words started trip trotting all over the page and were nearly illegible by the end of it. He noticed that all of the other students were starting to copy something down, so Robert scribbled a line down on his paper, so he wouldn't look suspicious. A part of him was dismayed: he was probably missing something really important, and would be paying for it on some test. 

Robert kindly told that part of him to shut up. He didn't care. There were more important things to worry about than not getting 100 percent on a test for once. 

He was so shocked that his subconscious thought of that, that his elbow slipped off of the table. Luckily, nobody noticed, and Robert regained his cool composure.

Letting his thoughts wander, he remembered his Tarot spread, and the Death card. Didn't that card mean that a great change was coming? Was this the change that he didn't care about his grades as much anymore? It was too confusing. So, he just looked at Professor Victor and listened to him babble.

# # #

WHOOSH. That was the sound of the Quaffel as it whistled by Gabriel's head. But, the aim was off, and it hit the side of the goalpost instead of going in the net. Katie Bell swooped down to get the red ball, Alicia Spinnet swerved by.

"Come on, Goalie! You need to be more alert to be able to stop the Slytherins tomorrow!" Gabriel gasped in spite of herself. The game! In all of the research due to finding out the dirt on Sybille Sandstone, she had almost forgotten. Harry sidled up to her, while the rest of the team was going off for a water break.

"Are you okay, Gabriel? You look ill." In fact, Gabriel didn't feel too great. She needed sleep, she was nervous, and she had a terrible headache. But she couldn't tell Harry that.

"I'm fine. 'Just a 'lil out of the swing of things, that's all," she said with a smile. Harry didn't seem convinced in the least, but to Gabriel's great relief, he didn't press it any further.

Gabriel landed in front of the water table, where she was promptly squirted in the back with a water bottle by George Weasley. She squealed with mock anger and grabbed another water bottle and squirted it back at him. Pretty soon, the Gryffindor table was engaged in a huge water fight, and for a few minutes, Gabriel forgot her troubles, and just enjoyed getting soaked.

# # #

Sarah sat in the Slytherin locker room, with her hands over her eyes. It was at the end of practice, and after a couple of weeks of Quidditch, she knew better than to look around, lest she wanted to see a bunch of half-naked boys running around. It would be different if they were good looking half-naked boys, but after getting an eyeful of Marcus Flint wearing nothing but a towel....she decided that it was better off if she spared her eyes the agony of it all. Fifteen minutes later, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

It was Draco Malfoy. "We're all dressed, you know. You don't have to hide anymore." Sarah cracked her fingers open and looked around. Everyone was indeed dressed, and filtering into the small meeting room, where Flint was to give them a 'peptalk', otherwise known as yelling at the team until he was purple in the face. Draco got up.

"I don't see what you're so embarrassed about," he grumbled. "It's not like we get totally dressed in here." Sarah turned around and surveyed him with a critical eye.

"Get some muscle on ya, grow about a foot, get a nice tan, and _then_ we'll talk." She turned and walked in the room. Draco stood there for a couple of seconds, not quite knowing what she meant by that. Then, all of a sudden, it came to him. He blushed a furious red.

"_That_ wasn't what I meant!" he yelled after her as he went into the meeting room.

# # #

The chicken potpie was delicious, but Robert couldn't bring himself around to swallow. He was still outrageously nervous, for some stupid reason, and he started to play with his napkin ring. Luckily for him, Alex didn't say anything, as he was getting tired of being asked how he was. It really was getting old. Forgetting his potpie, he downed an entire glass of milk in three gulps, poured another, and finished that one off as quickly as the last one.

Setting down his glass, he caught Gabriel's eye. She quickly nodded to him before turning back to the person that she was talking to. Robert took that to mean that the meeting at the Cubby was still on. He sighed as his dinner vanished from his plate and was replaced with a large bowl of rice pudding. Robert loved rice pudding, but he just wasn't hungry. Alex, on the other hand, was shoveling down the pudding as fast as he could get it on his spoon. Robert watched this with disdain and picked up the cinnamon.

The next thing he knew was Alex prodding him in the arm. "You like cinnamon a lot, Robert?" Robert started and looked down, and saw that he must have zoned out while sprinkling the cinnamon, and now there was a nice large mound on cinnamon on the white-yellow pudding. Looking at it, Robert felt quite green and shoved the pudding away. Instead, he grabbed an orange and began carefully peeling the skin down. 

The pudding vanished, and people started swarming out of the Great Hall. Alex looked down at Robert as he stood up.

"There's a Gobstone tournament tonight. Wanna come?" Robert liked Gobstones, but he remembered the meeting with the girls that he had, and shook his head.

"Nah. I'll be back later, kay?" Alex knew better than to protest, so he just nodded and left. Robert watched him leave, and then got up slowly.

# # #

"So, we've got money, the passage, the location, the invisibility cream," Hayley said, ticking the things off on her fingers as she spoke. "I think we're set to go. When should we set out?" she asked. Gabriel sighed and reclined in her chair, totally unexpeting Robert's sudden answer.

"I think we should go tonight," he said abruptly. All three girls sat up quickly. Even Sarah was startled. Robert looked up. "I saw that castle three times today, and I can't wait any longer. We won't be able to go down tomorrow, because of that Quidditch game." Gabriel took a deep breath.

"Well then. I'll see you guys tonight at say, midnight?" Everyone else nodded.

# # #

Sarah drummed her fingers nervously on the edge of the couch. Her friend, Essex, was talking about something excitedly, but Sarah didn't care. She needed it to be midnight, right now. While Essex went on babbling, Sarah felt her pockets, to make sure she had everything. 

"Wand, cream, money..." she said to herself. Essex looked at her.

"Are you okay, Sarah?"

"Hmmmm? I'm fine. Go on." Essex went on talking. Sarah looked at the clock. It read ten-thirty. Sarah sighed impatiently and Essex talked on.

# # #

Hayley's hands shook with nervousness as she roused from her bed, staggered into a bathrobe, and smeared some of Rosemary's invisibility cream on her nose and took out her wand. 

As soon as she wiped some of the cream on her nose, an odd tingling feeling swept through her body, like it was falling asleep. When the feeling stopped, Hayley turned to look in the mirror that was in the room. There was nothing there. Sighing heavily, and wishing the entire time that she didn't have to do this, Hayley Hufflepuff left her dormitory.

# # # 

Gabriel was the first one that had made it down to the Cubby, because most of the house had gone to bed early. Gabriel sat down in one of the chairs and waited with a heavy sigh.

Ten minutes later, she saw something of a shimmering gold color that was walking down the hall. She was about to scream, but shoved her fist in her mouth instead, hoping that it would block the noise. Gripping her wand, she ducked in a corner.

The golden figure walked into the Cubby, and sighed. Gabriel roused her courage and took a peek. When she did, he nearly screamed again. It was a transparent, gold-outlined vision of Sarah. Everything was perfect about Sarah's body shape, her normally black curly hair was now a golden color, and it fell down to gold-outlined shoulders. Sarah turned around at that moment and stared.

"Gabriel?" she asked, sounding a bit timid for once. Gabriel stood up all the way and nodded.

"Yep. You brought the money, right?" Sarah nodded back, and withdrew the purple velvet bag. But the bag was no longer purple; it was a transparent mass, outlined in the golden shimmer, with a golden rope. That was when Robert came in.

Like his counterparts, he was clear, outlined in gold. He sighed and scratched the back of his head with a gold-outlined hand.

"I think we can see each other, but nobody else can. I saw Hayley tiptoeing around, and I think she saw me, and I also saw Filch, but he didn't see me." The other two girls nodded, and at that moment, Hayley came in. She nodded nervously to everyone.

"Let's get on with it then."

Gabriel motioned for the other three to follow her. They did so, through the tapestries, the not solid wall, and up the flights of stairs that Gabriel had been led up earlier. Finally, when they reached the place where the secret room was, Gabriel put her finger to her lips and started tapping the paneled wall.

When she came across the hollow one, she inserted her fingernail and slid the well-waxed panel back into the wall. Her three friends scuttled in the hole, and Gabriel followed and closed it. When they were all in, four sets of lungs exhaled a silent sigh of relief. Then they all reached for their wands.

"Lumos," they all said, as quietly as possible. Four wands lit up, throwing ghostly shadows over the bare stone walls. They all began tiptoeing up the crumbled staircase, which was a task in itself, to navigate over which stairs were safe to put their weight on, and which not to. Finally, the walkway leveled out, and they were able to walk normally again. After about five minutes of walking, the foursome started to run down the stone corridor, trying to buy some more time. 

They came to a door at the end of the hallway, and Gabriel motioned for them to stop. She cracked the door open.

They were, indeed, by the Quidditch field, as Fred and George had suggested. Gabriel poked her head out, to make sure nobody was around, and then carefully walked out. Sarah, Hayley and Robert did the same.

"Where to now?" whispered Hayley, knees knocking together, and teeth chattering from nervousness. Gabriel was about to say that she didn't know, when the broom house was. She pointed over there.

"To the broom house. We can fly over there." Sarah seemed to accept the idea willingly, but Robert and Hayley were reluctant to go.

"No," Robert said flatly. "I can't fly." Sarah threw her hands up in the air in exasperation.

"Then what do you suggest to do, Mr. All-Knowing? Walk? That could take over an hour!" Robert shrank back, but Hayley still shook her head.

"I don't like heights." Sarah made a face and was about to retort, when Gabriel put a hand on her shoulder.

"No, let them. They can walk, and all this research on their part can be wasted. Sarah and I will go find Sybille and report what happens." Robert opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by one of Sarah's infamous glares. But then her look softened a bit.

"It's not hard. As long as you can sit and use your arms, you can fly." 

Meanwhile, while Sarah was guiding Robert and Hayley through the finer aspects of flying, Gabriel had plodded over the broom shack, where all the school brooms were kept. She frowned as she realized that the lock shimmered faintly in the darkness; it was spelled against students breaking in with magical spells. But was it spelled against lockpicks?

After her escapade through the school a few times, Gabriel had resolved to always carry lockpicks on her, since there were so many locked niches in the school that were inaccessible by wands alone. Carefully choosing two picks, she inserted them into the lock. There was a fizzing sound, and Gabriel removed the lockpicks just as the smell of melting metal met her nose. She swore, but then heard Robert's voice.

"It's a heat spell, it is. But, I can put a freezing spell on those picks of yours, and they should be able to stand up long enough to the heat for you to pick it open," he said with a sigh, and Gabriel knew that he was still against flying over to Hogsmeade. She nodded, and he took out his wand.

"Frigid Quemos," he whispered, tapping to two locks that Gabriel held in her hand. All of a sudden, a cold so cold it burned met Gabriel's fingertips. Biting her lip, she quickly picked the lock open. Of course, the lock was now so mangled that it would probably never lock again, and one of her lockpicks had melted beyond repair, but Gabriel didn't care. She grabbed three brooms for her friends, and one for herself. She watched in awe as Sarah gently instructed Hayley on how to take off.

If she wasn't so hot-tempered, thought Gabriel, she'd be a pretty good teacher for a subject such as....Potions. When Hayley and Robert had straddled their brooms, Sarah instructed them to jump, and they did so. The magic of the brooms caught them, and they were flying towards Hogsmeade. Even Robert had to grudgingly admit that flying was fun. But about five minutes later, they were over the town of Hogsmeade, and they dismounted.

As Robert hid the brooms under a pile of leaves, Sarah looked about the sleeping town. 

"So, Robert, where does she live?" Robert looked around, and shrugged, his ghostly golden form blurring to Sarah's tired eyes.

"I don't know. It only said that she was in Hogsmeade." Sarah's eyes nearly bulged out of her head, and she just barely controlled the overly harsh reaction of slapping him. Sarah didn't have a very sweet temper to begin with, but when she was deprived of sleep, it was even worse. Hayley saw her friend taking deep, calming breaths, and knew that she was trying really hard from spraying them all with her acidic words. She patted Sarah on the back.

"Just calm down Sarah, we'll find her." Sarah glared at her, but couldn't put as much steely fire into her eyes that she normally could, since she was so tired. 

While the other three were conversing, Gabriel looked around, and saw a figure, swathed in rags, huddled in front of a dark building. From here, Gabriel could see the red-hot ash and translucent smoke of muggle cigarettes. She pointed this out to her counterparts.

"See that person over there? D'you think that maybe she, or he, could tell us where Sybille Sandstone lives?" she asked. Sarah shrugged.

"I have no idea. But I'm not going to ask her. You go on, Miss Gryffindor, queen of all who is brave. Hayley's got the patience, Robert the brains, and I the slyness. You've got the courage. Go on." Robert and Hayley nodded, and Gabriel reddened at the ears, when she heard Sarah using the typical stereotypes of the houses. She grumbled.

"Oh all right, you cowards." She started to walk up to the figure, but heard Hayley's soft voice behind her.

"Gabby, you've got to wipe the cream off, or she won't be able to see you." she said in a demure voice. Gabriel picked up her sleeve and drug it across her nose. She felt an odd coldness where the cream used to be, and she felt more solid; as sign that she had come back to the visible state. Taking a deep breath, she walked up to the figure.

As soon as she was in a five-foot radius of the person, Gabriel's nose started to detect the acid smells of cigarette smoke, grease, urine and other unsavory things. Her eyes watered, but forced herself to keep on walking. She finally got in front of the person, who still paid her no heed. Gabriel cleared her throat.

"Excuse me, but I'm looking for the residence of Sybille Sandstone. Could you direct me in the right direction?" The figure looked up, and Gabriel swallowed.

The face was scarred and blistered, and the person had one eye without a pupil - it was just white. The lips of the person were thin and almost yellowish, and when the figure leered a smile, most of the teeth were missing, and the ones that he or she did have were very yellow and crooked, and there were black pockets under the gums. The figure flicked its cigarette, sending a red ash onto the pavement.

"Ain' it a wee bit late out for a youn' missy like yehself to be wandrin' the streets alone?" The voice was so raspy and scratchy that Gabriel still had no clue as to the sex of the person. The figure took a deep inhale of the cigarette and blew the smoke into Gabriel's face. Gabriel coughed and tried to wave it away.

"Yes, but I have a late-night appointment with her, and I need directions, please," she said as politely as she could. The figure hacked, and Gabriel backed up a step.

"I don' kno' wha'd yeh be wantin' wi' one o' them prophet people, buh she live' a' the end o' South streeh'. Don' kno' how yeh missed it." Gabriel nodded, and stuck her hand in her pocket, where it found a Sickle. She flipped it to the person, and nodded.

"Thank you." The figure picked up the silver coin and bit into it with its gums, and then put it in its pocket.

"Yeh're welcome." The figure took another inhale of its cigarette and put its head back down into its rags. Gabriel took that as a sign to leave.

"Well?" asked Sarah impatiently when Gabriel returned. Gabriel shook her head and shrugged at the same time.

"He told me that she lived on the end of South Street, though I have no idea where that is," she said with a yawn. The other three wiped the invisibility cream off their noses.

Using the street signs as a guide, the foursome wandered the residential part of Hogsmeade, looking for Sybille's house. Finally, they thought they found it. Robert went up the stairs of the cottage and rapped on the door curtly. There was some rustling inside the house, and Sybille Sandstone appeared.

She had gray hair with a black streak, that was done up into a tight bun. She wore gold-rimmed glasses that sat on top of a long nose the color of sand. Behind them was a pair of amber eyes that blinked sleepily. Despite the time of night, she was clad in a forest green robe, with an elaborately embroidered blue sash that was tied at the bottom with a gold tassel. She looked down at the children.

"I had a vision that you were coming, about your castle," came her sedate voice. "But, my children, it is so late! My Inner Eye will be clouded by the everlasting Sleep!" None of them had any idea of what she meant, but Sarah decided it was time to employ her trump card. Reaching into her night robes, she withdrew the purple bag of money and tossed it to Sybille.

"Maybe that will cure some of your everlasting Sleep," she said, snarling a bit. Sarah had been arisen from her bed, had told a bunch of people lies, called in every favor she ever had to get this far....And she wasn't going to be sent back by some everlasting Sleep. Sybille fingered the moneybag, and nodded.

"Very well, young Slytherin, as I see you are so determined. Come on in, my children, so we can get reacquainted with your Inner Eye!" Eyebrows raised, the foursome followed her in the cottage.

It only had one room, with a pallet on the floor in one corner, and a stove in the other. The walls were painted a pale pink color, and there were several kinds of brightly colored silk tapestries hanging from the walls and ceiling. Bookcases piled high with books, tarot cards, crystal balls, teacups, and all other sorts of things covered almost all other surfaces. A large, round table sat in the midst of it all, a large tapestry serving as a tablecloth. There was a door in the back, but it was closed. Sybille sorted through the shelves and took out a couple of boxes, a large silver goblet, a bottle of something yellow, and a small pouch off. She picked up a candle.

"Come, my children," she beckoned. Robert, Gabriel, Sarah, and Hayley obeyed, and they followed her out the door to the back.

They were in a small, fenced in yard with a single dirt path that wound through a couple of gardens, but lead to a small shack. Sybille beckoned them to the shack.

The shack had a rough, round table around it, and the table had been sawed down, so it was at kneeling height. There were pillows on the ground, and the children took them. Sybille put the candle in the center of the table, and situated herself at the other end from the foursome. 

"There will be some serious magic going on here tonight," she said in a voice that sent shivers up Robert's spine. "Please don't be afraid or scream," she said, looking at Hayley. "The neighbors wouldn't like it." Hayley wanted to scream right now, but bit on the feeling.

Sybille picked up the goblet and put it on the table. She then poured the contents of the bottle into it, and took up the black pouch that she had picked up. It was a small, crooked, ivory handled dagger, which was studded with jewels. She grabbed for Robert's hand, and he yanked it back.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, eyes darting from Sybille to the knife to the exit of the shack. Sybille heaved a big sigh and adjusted her glasses.

"My dear, in order to do advanced Divination, you need sacred oil and blood. I've provided the oil, and you must provide the blood." Robert noticed that Hayley went a little ashen at hat remark - she hated blood. Robert gritted his teeth and held out his palm.

Sybille slit his skin from the bottom of his palm to the tip of his middle finger. It was a very shallow cut, so it didn't hurt much, but it bled quite a bit. Robert waited while Sybille did the other girls. Hayley didn't scream, she just whimpered a little bit as the knife bit into her skin. Then Sybille gouged her own flesh, calmly explaining what to do next.

"Now, put some of your blood into the goblet, young ones, and we shall begin," she said, as if this wasn't out of the ordinary. Robert held his hand over the goblet and let some blood roll off of his fingers and into the goblet. The girls did the same. As soon as Hayley's drops of blood hit the oil, it began to smoke.

There was a colorful explosion, and Robert bit his lip just in time to avoid screaming. When he opened his eyes again, there was colorful fire in the goblet, and white streamers streaking though the air. Robert had seen impressive magic in his time, but nothing like this. When the spectacle was over, Robert looked at himself. He was glowing blue! The girls were glowing too, only for Hayley it was a sedate yellow, Sarah an earthy green, and Gabriel a fiery red. Sybille herself was white.

"The glow is your essence - the stuff that makes Hayley Hufflepuff Hayley Hufflepuff, Robert Ravenclaw Robert Ravenclaw, and so on. Most people's essence is white. Yours is colored because you must have an angel's hand on you, showing you The Way." Sarah shuddered, thinking about some dead person with its hand on her.

Sybille proceeded to take out another box, this one with incense. She lit a stick, and instantly, the little house was filled with the smoky scent of beachwood. She took out the last box, which had some Tarot cards in it. But these were different than the ones that Robert had used in the Divination tower. They were more elongated, and not as generic. Sybille spread them out on the table.

"Choose one card, each of you. You will know which is right for you, as it will stand out." Hayley grimaced and looked at the cards. One of them started to glow a bright yellow, and Hayley supposed that that was what Sybille meant by standing out. So she picked it and waited for the others to do so. When they had all chosen, Sybille picked one out, and they sat in silence for a moment, before Sybille spoke again.

"The cards you chose describe you and your paths. The card I chose represents your castle." Hayley took a deep breath and looked at the others; this was what they had been waiting for. Sybille reached for Hayley's card and turned it over. It was a picture of a small child, laughing and playing. Sybille summed up the card and cleared her throat.

"You," she said looking at Hayley squarely, "Are Innocent. The world of the Innocent is the most wondrous place on earth. The Innocent are carefree, kind, and understanding. But the Innocent can also be taken advantage of, or be trodden upon, by those with cruel hearts or ambitions. But you are also the bearer of much patience and common sense. Sometimes, the Innocent can see the situation clearer than those that are burdened with information," she finished, looking at Hayley. Hayley was confused, but thought that somehow, it might have made a little bit of sense. Sybille turned to Gabriel, and she turned the card over. It had what looked like a woman stringing an arrow on it.

"You are the Wild Woman. A Wild Woman is calm, alert, brave, and trustworthy. She is connected to the world in thousands of ways. While you, Wild Woman, take risks, you carefully observe what you do, and what you think the outcome of the risks will be. But maybe you spend too much of your time clamped up inside. Express your feelings, or you are a Slave in your own world. Open up to your possibilities, Wild Woman. You have more potential than you think, or others know," Sybille finished. Gabriel bit the inside of her cheek. A Wild Woman? She didn't think that she was like that at all. But maybe it did describe her, a little. Sybille had turned to Robert, and his card had a man in a dark green cloak, holding a staff.

"You, my dear Robert, are the Sage. The knowledge of the Sage does not come through book learning, but from personal experience. You may not be a Sage yet, my young one, but, in time it will. You are sober, smart, and gentle, but have a tendency to be critical or cold towards others that were not blessed with the wisdom that you, as the Sage, have. But though those people may not have the knowledge of the world, as you Perceive it, they are Sages in their own rights, and you should not snuff, or abandon them. You have great capacity, and you take things as they come. I See great things for you, Robert," she turned towards Sarah, leaving Robert to his very confused thoughts. Sybille flipped over Sarah's card, which had a picture of a farmer that was lying by a pile of straw, sleeping. Sybille smiled.

"You, miss, are the Queen of Not Doing. You like to abandon your Reality for a while, and just sit and enjoy the Present. You hate being tied down, and will fight a rigorous schedule with all you have, and more. You enjoy doing things just for the sheer pleasure of it, for no profit or reward. But Not Doing can mean that you are hiding from Reality, and that can just end up making you irritable and snappish. Not Doing is one of the finest aspects of life, but doing it excessively can mean you are just hiding behind a mask; shirking your true problems." Sarah looked at Sybille, not quite knowing what she meant. But Sybille had just turned to the last card, and flipped it over.

It was a blank card. The foursome stared at it, and Sybille smiled at them. "This is the Naguel, the unknown. It is the untamed, unpredictable part of this world, the Unexplainable. It is always unseen and rarely sensed. It may be an Omen, or other signs of strange happenings. But no matter what, it always means that the winds of change are blowing. Proceed with caution with your castle, my young friends. Things are NOT what they seem to be." If the foursome was waiting for more, it was not forthcoming. Sarah stared at the blank card.

"That's it!?" she asked, pounding the table with a sleepy fist. "That's all!? We already knew that it was the unknown! That's why we came here, so it wouldn't be unknown anymore!" she yawned. Sybille smiled at her. 

"Go to sleep, my friends. Just sleep." Sarah shut her eyes, and knew no more.

# # #

"Wake up, Hayley!" Hayley Hufflepuff groaned and turned over. It couldn't be morning, it couldn't be. "Come on Hayley! We're gonna be late!" Hayley opened her eyes and they met Rosemary's pink eyes, and she shook her again. "You're finally up! Get dressed. I'll be downstairs." And with that, she left.

Hayley stood up and cracked her back as she did so. Gripping the bedpost, she groaned again and hobbled over to her trunk. She had had a funny dream, and it was bothering her. Was it a dream, though? Had she actually gone to go see Sybille Sandstone, or was it just a big dream? But it had seemed so real...How could she tell what was fake and what wasn't? Grunting, she heaved the top of the chest up and picked out a cleanly pressed black robe and slid it over her head. She reached out her hand to get her brush, when she noticed something. She had a small scab running from the tip of her finger to the bottom of her palm. For a few seconds, she stared at it, absorbing what the small mark meant.

It meant that they really had gone to see Sybille Sandstone, and that they had broken about fifty school rules into pieces in the process. It meant that she was Innocent, Robert a Sage, Gabriel a Wild Woman, and Sarah the Queen of Not Doing. It meant that the Unknown was at work, and that they were no closer to solving the mystery of the dark castle then before.

Hayley had to lean back on her heels to absorb it all properly. Feeling strange, she shook her head and went downstairs, in a sort of delirium.

# # #

The day passed in a haze for Sarah, as she went through the motions of the day. It was a bright, clear day, but Sarah thought that the sun was mocking her, and she hated it. She had never wanted cloud cover and rain so badly before, even if the Quidditch game was tonight....The Quidditch game. Sarah groaned, and put her head in her hands. She was in no mood to go flying in the air and go whacking at flying Bludgers. She had a monstrous headache, all of her joints felt like they were rusty and needed to be oiled, her bones creaked, her muscles ached, and she felt like she had just run a mile-long gauntlet.

But, on the other hand, she couldn't just not play her first game. Sure, there were two Beaters, and she could always be replaced, but then the Gryffindors would just think that she was wimping out, and didn't want to play, and besides, her pride wouldn't allow not being competitive because she felt lousy. Besides, Marcus Flint would probably haul off and yell in her ear for another hour, and she didn't think that her ears could take anymore noise. 

Sarah just sighed and looked out the window.

# # #

Gabriel changed into her crimson Quidditch robes with a groan. She was worried that she wouldn't play very well today, she didn't feel good, and her mind was on dark castles and Divination, not Quidditch. Fred and George Weasley were giving a very funny peptalk, but Gabriel wasn't hearing it. She was hearing the crack of lightning around the castle, she was hearing the sound of Tarot cards turning over, and the sound of the Unknown doing it's cycle, but she wasn't hearing a pre-game peptalk. Finally, it was over. The Gryffindors huddled for a group cheer, and Gabriel put her hand in the groups pile of hands, and they began to chant the Gryffindor team cheer, but Gabriel didn't join in. She wanted to be somewhere else, but not here.

# # #

Hayley and Robert were sitting in the stands, next to some friends of Gabriel, whose names were Ron and Hermione. They were standing on the bleachers in front of them, and Hayley and Robert couldn't see anything, so they were obliged to stand also. Finally, after much announcing and gibbering done by Lee Jordan, the two teams came out onto the field. Hayley put her head in her hands for a brief moment. She really was in no mood for competition at this moment, but thought better of suggesting to leave. After the captains shook hands, they mounted brooms and took off. Hayley winced along with the crowd when Sarah hit a bludger into Katie Bell's stomach, and cheered when Gabriel made a save. They seemed to be showing no sign of the strain that Hayley felt, but, inside, she was sure that they were. 

Halftime came and went, and it was a very close game. 50-45, Gryffindor, the score was. The teams took the field again after a short break, and now the eyes were all looking for the glint of gold that was the Snitch. Slytherin scored, and it was now 50-55. 

Then the moment everyone was waiting for: the Snitch's appearance. Harry and Draco vaulted for it at the same time, but Harry's broom was on the inside track, giving him the edge. He went faster and faster, arm stretched out, he was 10 feet...9 feet....8...7...6..5..4..3....2......1....

WHAM! A bludger hit him in the back of the head, making his face fly forward and hit the handle of the broom. He staggered, and the Snitch disappeared again. The Slytherin section of the crowd cheered, while the Gryffindors booed.

"Great shot, Sarah!" boomed Draco as he whizzed by on his Cloudburst. Sarah nodded, and was about to go chasing after another Bludger, when she heard a voice from the crowd. 

"Is he all right?" Sarah whipped around, and saw that Harry Potter was weaving about on his broom. The hit with the Bludger must have knocked him off balance. He started to slip off. 

Feeling responsible, Sarah maneuvered her broom back, and grabbed the back of his robe as he fell off. The weight of his mass almost jerked Sarah off her broom. In fact, it did. Hanging onto her broom with her right arm, and gripping the back of Harry's shirt, she hung there, swaying, while the crowd and other players watched, horrorstruck.

"HELP ME, YOU FOOLS!!" cried Sarah, red in the face. "I'M GOING TO FALL OFF AND GET KILLED IF SOMEONE DOESN'T H-E-L-P M-E!!" At this request, George Weasley came over and picked up Harry, while Draco assisted Sarah back onto her broom. Harry staggered back to his balance point, and stared. Gabriel came over and stared. Sarah was about to say something, probably to tell everybody to stop gawking so she could play, but before she could do that, something odd happened.

Black lightning split the sky. After it had disappeared, the castle came back to the awareness of Hayley, Robert, Sarah and Gabriel, but more vivid that ever. They could feel the dampness of the air...Hayley screamed....There was some maniac laughter.....Robert screamed....There was high winds....Gabriel clutched her head and let out an unearthly shriek....It was cold and hot at the same time...Sarah whimpered and then screamed....Colors started mixing, twirling, whirling, making the four sick, and then all dissolved into nothing.

Draco reached out and caught Sarah before she toppled off of her broom, while Harry struggled with Gabriel's weight. Ron had caught Hayley before she smashed her head on the bleachers, and Robert had fallen into Hermione's arms unintentionally. They all looked at the fainted individuals in bewilderment, but then saw a very blurry - like a badly taken photograph - image of the castle that the foursome had been seeing since the beginning of the year. 

White-hot pain seared up through their arms, and they screamed also. Black magic entwined their bodies, and they blacked out also.

There was another crack of black lightning, and when it cleared, everybody, Hayley, Robert, Sarah, Gabriel, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco - were all gone.

Authors Note: That was long. Have you ever got the feeling where you're just typing and typing and typing and not getting *ANYWHERE*!?!?! I'm so sorry, you guys, but I didn't even get to the castle. This installment was already 24 pages long as it is....-_-. I SHOULD be getting to the castle in the next part....Well, anyway, just review. Did you like the second Tarot card reading? I hope so. It was very fun to write! 

~Moxie ^_^

Disclaimer: I don't own any character that is in the series of Harry Potter. I own all the characters that are not in Harry Potter. It's that simple. (I don't know WHY I have to write this....Does anyone ever actually claim to own Harry Potter? Besides J.K. Rowling, that is....^_~) 


	6. Heirs of Darkness

The wind tousled Sarah's curls rudely, waking her up. She had no idea of what happened, or where she was, but it was dark here, and she wasn't on the Quidditch field anymore. The wind blew again, tossing dirt into her mouth. Spitting it out weakly, she drug herself off of the dusty ground and looked around blearily.

The sky was an eerie mix of deep purple and the gray of storm clouds. The air was very thick, heavy and damp to her lungs; it was the kind of weather about five minutes before the worst storms thrashed the earth. There was no kind of greenery in sight, only brown, hard dirt, and the occasional leafless tree. The wind picked up again and threw Sarah's hair about, until she finally lost patience and used a hair tie on it.

Finally noticing that Robert, Hayley and everybody else were not up with her, she painfully staggered to her feet to look for them. Sarah couldn't repress a small moan. It felt like someone had taken her body and used it for a Bludger in a Quidditch match. Gaining her balance, she looked about. Nothing but a flat, greenless plain in all directions. Noting that it was dark out, Sarah took out her wand.

"Lumos!" she said to it. It began to light up, but then something odd happened. It flickered yellow for a moment, but then there was a great whizzing sound, and the yellow light turned purple. Sarah stared at it, and then the wand flickered off. Cursing, she tried again, but this time nothing happened at all.

"Great," she moaned to herself. It was just as well that the light didn't work, because her eyes had begun to adjust anyway. Grumbling, she looked behind her, and saw seven lifeless lumps on the ground, and she assumed that those were her counterparts.

She stumbled over, and shook the first body she came to, which happened to be Robert. He made a pitiful moaning sound in his throat and rolled over. Sarah shook him again, and he sat up, looking bewildered. He didn't say anything, though, and Sarah staggered over to the next person.

When they were all up, Gabriel, who was only semi-awake, looked around hazily. Yawning, she spoke.

"Where are we?" she asked. Hayley shrugged.

"Don't ask me," she said, with a bit of an odd strain to her voice. Hermione was about to speak, when Ron and Draco screamed at the same time and pointed to the sky.

Three large dark shapes were snaking around in the sky oddly, the dark silhouettes barely visible against the dark backdrop. Fire exploded in the sky; green, azure and dark pink. While the rest of the group screamed, Robert and Hermione squinted at the sky.

"They're _dragons_!" they screamed at the same time, and then blushed at each other. Harry stopped his bout of yelling to look up for a second.

"They don't _look _like dragons," he protested. It was true. These dragons weren't normal, or at least, they didn't look a thing like Norbert did. They were elongated and snake-like, with no legs, but they all had two very skinny, long, chicken limbs, that looked incapable of serving any useful purpose, let alone use for walking on. It was obvious that they were not ever meant to land on solid ground. They also had no apparent wings, so they must have had some type of sorcery on them to keep them in the air for so long.

Everybody, that is, except for Sarah, took out his or her wands in a battle stance. Sarah saw what they meant to do, and gasped.

"No! Wait! It won't-" it was too late. The dragons started to come closer, and everybody aimed their wands.

"Slephern Mephor!" they all cried - a sleeping charm, guaranteed to put even the toughest enemy to sleep. But, as soon as the yellow spell exploded from the end of the wands, the purple-black force came from out of nowhere again, and pounced on the yellow cloud, dowsing it. They all stared at their wands in bewilderment, and Sarah sighed.

"I _tried_ to tell you," she snapped. "But _no_, let's not listen to _Sarah_, _Sarah_ knows _nothing_.." she snarled with discontent. Gabriel cut her off before she went on ranting.

"Sarah, we get your point, now shut up," she said tensely as the giant beasts snaked closer and closer. Finally, they came within good viewing point.

They were, quite predictably, long and scaly, and their faces had licks of flame on the sides, it reminded Hayley a lot of the Chinese dragons that people dressed up under and paraded around the streets with. Up close, she could see that the dragons were respectively green, blue, and dark pink scales, in conjunction with the colors of fire that they breathed. Also, Draco could see the purpose of the two skinny limbs; they each had five long, sharp, needle-like silvery claws on them. They were unnatural; these dragons were, thought Ron with a bit of sardonic glee. He also thought that Charlie would have a field day if he saw these terrifying beasts.

The dragons circled the small party, which was drawing closer and closer together, all former rivalries forgotten, as colorful fire split the sky and tortured their eyes again. Hermione squealed and buried her burning eyes into Draco's shoulder - she thought he was Harry, and Draco blushed hotly. The three dragons were now in a tight circle around the group, and the blue one leered unpleasantly at them.

--_Such tasty-looking morsels. I say we barbecue them now, and enjoy them fresh_.-- He picked up Hayley, who screamed and flailed, under his grip. Sarah noticed that she still held the Bludger club in her left hand, and she brought it around in a wide butterfly-sweep, like one might do to a sword. She brought it down onto the blue dragon's arm, and she could hear the nasty, splintery snap of bone. The dragon howled and released Hayley, and she fell with a thud to the ground. The injured reptile brought it's blue eyes - the pupils were like a cats' - down onto Sarah. Sarah just realized that she had done a very stupid thing.

--_Idiot human! Prepare to become flambé'_!-- Sarah bent on her knees and got ready to duck. Robert ran up to her, prepared to stop her in case she tried anything else stupid. But another dragon - the pink one - came over and stopped the blue dragon from spraying them all with flame.

--_Not now, Aquanus, not now. The master wants them all alive, and if you kill them all now, he won't like that._-- The blue dragon snorted.

--_And what would you know about it, Carnash_?-- he snarled, holding his broken arm up. The pink dragon - Carnash - looked at the quaking group of humans, and smiled toothily. She reached out a silvery claw-nail and gently stroked one of Sarah's curls. Sarah didn't move, knowing that if she did, she'd probably be impaled upon the claw-nail.

--_She is brave_.-- the dragon said, with almost a hint of affection in her mental voice. She turned to Aquanus. --_The master values bravery_.--

Harry started. Values bravery? Where had he heard that before? The blue one was about to snap back, but the green dragon, intervening for the first time since the beginning, spoke.

--_Aquanus? Carnash? Shall we get on with it_?-- Aquanus and Carnash looked at the dragon, like they had forgotten that he was there.

--_You always spoil all our fun, Hunter_.-- Aquanus complained, but he got to work, doing whatever the dragons were supposed to be doing.

The dragons started to rotate, counter-clockwise, around the group, faster and faster, until all of the colors melded together in a brownish haze. Then a mist of swirled colors came out of their scales, and enveloped the group. The mist was heavy and thick to the point that when Draco inhaled it, he could almost detect the liquid droplets in it. Then he was sleepy. So sleepy that he couldn't stand up, and his knees caved in on him. His head nodded off without his permission to do so, and everything went black. 

# # #

Meanwhile, the entire school of Hogwarts had been thrown into absolute chaos over the events of the Quidditch game. The Quidditch game itself had been forgotten completely, much to Marcus Flint's chagrin, and everybody was now in the Great Hall, babbling confusedly over the events that had transpired. The teachers were huddled at the High Table, talking seriously over what might have happened. In the events, all rivalries had been completely forgotten along with the Quidditch game, and Gryffindors relayed rumors with Slytherins without a thought of enmity in either' mind. Essex, Alanya, Alex and Rosemary were huddled in the corner, talking to themselves, trying to figure out what happened.

"You know, I did notice that Sarah had been acting weirdly lately," Essex yelled thoughtfully, as you had to basically scream to be heard over the turmoil of the crowd. "She was very spacey, like her mind was totally on something else the entire time."

"It was the same with Gabby - Gabriel," Alanya yelled back. "I saw her before the game. Her face was all-uptight, but I didn't think it was just of nervousness. It seemed like she wasn't here mentally." Alex wrinkled his eyebrows thoughtfully.

"Robert was the same way, and it's quite odd for Robert to do that, since he's so down to earth most of the time. It started in Divination, when he had a Tarot card reading one day, and he was kind of off his tack from there," he said, remembering the look on Robert's face as he read Robert the meaning of his Tarot spread.

Rosemary opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the loud, grating sound of rusty hinges being opened. Someone was entering the Great Hall. All of the chatter stopped instantly. When they could see the figure, the school looked at it oddly.

It was Sybille Sandstone. Her hair fell down to her back in a plait, and she was sporting a dark blue robe with several golden chains and amulets hanging from her neck. She quickly scanned the room, as if looking for someone. She obviously didn't find whoever she was looking for, as she shot her sharp amber eyes at Dumbledore.

"They're gone, aren't they Albus?" Dumbledore raised his eyebrows at Sybille before clearing his throat and speaking.

"I don't know whom you mean, Sandy," he said, calling her by her pet name.

"Albus, don't be pert. You know I don't like it. I Saw that they were gone, your little quartet."

"If you mean Miss Hufflepuff, Miss Slytherin, Miss Gryffindor, Mr. Ravenclaw, yes, they are gone. They have also taken with them Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, and Miss Granger. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this, Sandy?" Sybille rubbed one temple and muttered something to herself before replying.

"Your foursome came to me for help last night. They said that they needed my Inner Eye to help clear their paths, and show them The Way," she said. Minerva McGonagall raised her eyebrows.

"You were here last night, Sybille? Why wasn't I informed?" she asked. Sybille shook her head so hard that her plait of hair wobbled.

"No, they came to me, Minerva. Their cloudy Inner Eyes needed assistance, and they came to me. I don't know how they did it, but they came around 1:30 in the morning last night." When she had finished saying this, Madam Hooch banged a fist on the table.

"So that explains it," she said, her yellow eyes staring at the table as she seemingly fitted loose ends together. McGonagall looked at her.

"It explains what?" Madam Hooch looked at Dumbledore.

"I was going to tell you after the game, Albus, but last night some students broke into the broom shack, and four brooms are missing. The lock is damaged beyond repair, and there was a melted lockpick on the ground....Doesn't that Gryffindor girl own lockpicks?" 

Dumbledore scowled thoughtfully at the ground. "It makes sense. They snack out of the school, undoubtedly through a passage"--his eyes twinkled at Fred and George--"got brooms and flew to Hogsmeade. Very clever and well planned, I must say. Now, tell me, Sandy. Why did they come to you in the first place?" he finished. Sybille fiddled with a sapphire amulet before she answered.

"They were all having visions of this dark castle, and I think that's where they've gone, Albus. We must talk about this in private," she said, eyes darting to all of the students, who were drinking in every word. Dumbledore nodded curtly.

"But of course." He raised his voice. "I leave the Head Boy and Girl in charge." All of the teachers filed out of the room, followed by Sybille Sandstone. They left, the door shutting behind them.

The room erupted into chaos again. 

# # #

Hayley awoke with a groan; feeling like some giant ogre had taken hammers and pounded her with them. As soon as she woke up, without even opening her eyes, she knew that something was wrong. Her legs felt overly exposed, and she was wearing short sleeves. Trying to figure out what happened, it all came back. The black lightning, the dragons, passing out...and now she was here. Afraid to open her eyes, she swallowed. Then she realized how silly she was being.

"Hayley, you're not going to be able to know anything if you don't open your eyes," she chided herself softly. It took a great burst of willpower, but she shoved her eyes open.

Her eyes met a rough, stone wall. Turning over slowly, she noticed that she was in a big, gray room, with a crude oil lamp hanging in the middle of it to give off light, because there were no windows. The rest of the room was completely bare of anything else.

Looking down at herself, she saw that she was no longer in her black school robes, but in a plain, drab gray garment with short sleeves, that went down to her knees. Her feet were bare, and her wand was gone. There was a snort to the left of her.

She noticed now that she was on a thin pallet, and there were other pallets here besides her own. She saw Robert, Gabriel, Hermione, Ron, Draco and Harry, who were still sleeping peacefully beside her. But where was Sarah? Where was she at, anyway? The mere thought of pondering those complex questions boggled her mind alone, so she decided to leave them for a time when her head didn't throb so badly.

She thought briefly of waking the others up, but decided against it. She wanted to be alone right now, and talking would only make her head hurt worse. Instead she leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. It was good just to listen to the silence.

# # #

Sarah stirred back to consciousness with a groan. She didn't know where she was, but it was quite comfortable, and she intended to go back to sleep. Rolling over, she almost succeeded in that task, but then her brain kicked in. She remembered about the lightning, the forsaken Quidditch match, Sybille Sandstone, and then she was too awake to go back to sleep. Mumbling a curse word, she sat up and opened her eyes.

She was in a huge bed, in an even bigger bedroom. The bed was a gigantic canopy, ebony wood and black adornments. The room itself was wooden paneled, with elaborate carvings in the panels. There was a vanity set on one side of the room, with brushes, perfume, and all other kinds of beautification objects. There were also two large, tall windows on either side of the bed that the curtains were drawn shut. The scary thing was that, in the elaborately carved fireplace, the fire was a flickering green, not the normal red that fire was supposed to be.

Edging out of bed, she noticed that she wasn't wearing her Quidditch robes, but a long, heavy black dress. Seeing this, Sarah scoffed.

"You'd think I was in _mourning_," she snarled to herself. Walking over to one of the windows, she pulled back the curtain.

It would have been a magnificent view, if there had been anything to look at. It was the same dirt plains that she had seen before, with the leafless trees, and no greenery. The only thing that made it worth looking at was the sky, which was still in its unusual swirl of pinkish-purple and gray that it always had been. There was a voice from behind her.

"You finally awaken," it said softly. Sarah whirled around, skirts swishing. Behind her was perhaps the oddest person that she had ever seen.

It was a girl, with pale skin. Sarah remembered thinking that Draco was pale. But this girl was paler than if death had kissed her personally. She had honey-brown hair that fell in shaggy locks to her shoulders, and blood-red lips. She had startling emerald green eyes, sharper than anything Sarah had ever seen. This all contrasted starkly against the drab brown dress that was much too big for her. In contrast to this, she wore a golden medallion that hung from her neck by a thin gold chain, and fine looking sandals. Sarah thought she had never seen someone that looked so beautiful, so plain, so poor and so rich at the same time. The girl smiled slightly.

"Welcome to castle Sapuis. I am Chenelle, your servant and guide. Can I assist you with anything?" she asked, with a droning voice. Sarah smiled back thinly, and voiced the first question that came to her mind.

"Where is everybody else, Chenny?" Sarah asked, calling Chenelle by a made-up nickname. Chenelle didn't seem to mind much. But she seemed to have trouble answering that question.

"I assume you mean everybody else in context to your friends? I don't know where they are, except for the fact that they aren't in the same wing with you." Sarah noticed that when she said this, her voice quavered a bit, and the words sounded like they had been memorized. It was obvious that Chenelle was lying. Sarah decided that she needed to go off and explore the castle herself, to see what really was up. Though by the demeanor of Chenelle, she didn't seem to be leaving. Sarah sighed.

"May I have something to drink?" she asked, trying to get Chenelle to leave. Chenelle raised an eyebrow.

"What would you like, Miss Slytherin?" she asked. Sarah winced when Chenelle said her name. She said the first drink that came to her mind.

"A pina colada," she said crisply. Chenelle looked at her oddly, and Sarah mentally smacked herself over the head, for not thinking of something better to say.

"A pina colada. _You_ want to have a pina colada," Chenelle said slowly. Sarah sighed and mentally hit herself again.

"Hey. I said I wanted a pina colada, and if I said I wanted a pina colada, I want a pina colada!" she snapped at Chenelle. Chenelle raised her eyebrows again.

"All right then! You don't have to get testy with me, a pina colada it is then." Sarah watched her leave. Walking out into the hall, she noticed that it was darker than night in there. Retreating back into her room, she thought fast. She didn't have her wand, and if she did, it probably wouldn't work anyway. Looking around, she saw a candelabrum that was stationed on a wall opposite the gargantuan bed. It had five long-stemmed candles in it. Sarah strided up to it and tried to take one out. It wouldn't budge. Getting frustrated, she snapped it off of its base, leaving half of it there. Sticking the candle into the green fire, she soon had a little green flame on her candle. And with that, Sarah Slytherin set out to explore.

# # #

"I want _out_!" Gabriel Gryffindor cried for the thousandth time, banging on the rough stone wall, as there was no door. Draco scowled irritably.

"I want out too, but screaming at the walls isn't accomplishing anything, besides giving me a headache!" he snarled at her angrily. Gabriel turned to him, gave him an incensed stare, and then smacked at the wall again.

Robert sighed sadly and put his head in his arms. He would have been banging at the wall like Gabriel, but he was too tired. Besides, he didn't think that it would do any good. Ron sat down next to him.

"Could you explain something to me?" he snapped at Robert. Robert wearily looked back at him. It was too exhausting to even put forth the effort of snapping back.

"What?"

"Why the hell are we here with you? Where are we? Where is that Sarah friend of yours, and what was the castle I saw before coming here?" Ron seemed very irritable, and Robert didn't think much of answering him at first.

"I don't know why you're here, I don't know where we are, I have no idea where Sarah is, and I don't know what the castle is - yet. Are you satisfied?" Ron stuck his chin out and rested his head on his palms.

"No. I want to-" Robert cut him off angrily.

"I want to know where I am too, all right? Stop bothering me about it, because I don't know either!" Not wanting to deal with being interrogated anymore, Robert got up off of the floor and went over to where Gabriel was still banging on the wall like a maniac.

"You're just going to end up tearing up your palms doing that, you know," Hayley said softly to Gabriel. Gabriel looked at her palms, and they were indeed, red and smarting from the blows, and torn a little bit. She rubbed at her palms, and scowled at the wall in front of her.

"They put us in here, so there _must_ be an opening somewhere.." she reasoned. Draco groaning and standing up interrupted her.

"You fool. Don't you know that some type of spell placed us in here? I don't think there is an opening," he finished, sneering. Gabriel and the rest of the group looked at him.

"And what kind of spell could do that, Malfoy?" asked Harry, only semi-interested.

"Dark Magic can, Potter. Don't you pay attention in Defense against the Dark Arts?" he drawled back, wiping dirt off of his short gray outfit.

"And I bet you know everything there is to know about the Dark Arts, Malfoy," Ron snarled. "From your father, perhaps?" Draco's eyes bulged with anger, but then they calmed down to a bit of smug gladness.

He made some sort of sign with his arms in the air, and muttered something. A purple blast of lightning emitted from the tips of his fingers, stopping just before it scorched Ron's toes.

"Nope. I learned that one by myself," he said coolly. Hermione stared at him in shock.

"You know, you can get expelled knowing that sort of stuff..." Draco shrugged and pretended to inspect the dirt underneath his fingernails.

"You can't get in trouble for _knowing_ the Arts. It's all a matter of using them for evil or not," he finished smugly. "Your precious Professor Dumbledore knows them, believe it or not." Robert was still staring at the scorch mark that had been left on the perfect gray floor.

"You don't need a wand to do the Dark Arts?" Draco shrugged, obviously pleased that people were so interested in the subject that he knew so much about.

"For the minor spells, no. But if I wanted to do a big death curse, yes." Gabriel walked up to him and grabbed his arm, whipping him around.

"What can you do?" she asked frantically. Draco sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"Call Dark light, extinguish Dark light, call Dark lightning, I can countercurse simple charms and spells, and that's about all, without a wand," he finished. Gabriel nearly smacked him over the head.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? Can't you blow a hole in the roof, or something?" she asked him, almost angrily. Draco shrugged.

"I seriously doubt it, Gryffindor," he said, grumbling. "I don't think that I can blow a hole in solid rock." Gabriel groaned.

"Well, you're going to try, whether you want to or not. Go on," she said pertly. Draco, for once, didn't feel like arguing. He made the sign again, muttered something, and pointed at the ceiling.

The lightning came from his fingertips, except it was much wider and darker than before. It struck the ceiling, and it made a slight dent, and that was about all. Gabriel turned back to Draco, who was sweating profusely, and weaving. He shot an angry glare at her.

"I told you it wouldn't work," he mumbled before collapsing into a dead faint. Hayley stared at him.

"Well. I guess we won't be trying _that_ again, will we?" she asked. Robert got up and dragged Draco over to one of the pallets. Gabriel shrugged and turned back to the wall.

"Let me _out_," she cried, banging viciously at the wall again. On the other side of the room, Hermione groaned.

"She just doesn't learn, does she?" she asked, staring at Gabriel bloodying her palms on the wall.

# # #

Sarah quickened her pace along the fine, marble corridor. She didn't like this at all. In the last half-hour, she had seen no other sign of life, save the pictures, which only watched her every movement with glaring eyes. The slap of her glossy, impractical shoes was the only sound, and the echoes bounced off of the walls about five times before the noise stopped completely, which made it sound like someone was following her. Not to mention, save for the little green flame that sputtered and danced around on its wick, it was pitch black. The entire effect of the place was very eerie. Sarah shivered as the wind started to howl.

The green flame gobbled the wax on the long-stemmed candle very quickly, so after a half-hour, Sarah was left with a handful of hot melted wax with pieces of wick floating about in it. Her eyes stung because of the burns she was getting from the hot wax, but there was no way she was going to walk around in the dark.

Sarah had long since lost track of the place where she had started from - this entire castle was like a gigantic rabbit warren, with passages snaking left and right and anywhere else imaginable. But, surprisingly, there were very few rooms. She only counted five so far: a parlor, what looked like a billiards room, a library that was full of books in foreign languages, another bedroom, and an empty room. Sarah was beginning to wonder if she should have just stayed in her room, when she saw another door.

This one had an eerie green glow around the edges of it, and at first, Sarah wasn't sure if she dared enter it. But, she gathered her resolve and tentatively pushed the door open.

For a few moments, Sarah couldn't see anything, because of the blinding green light that came at her poor eyes that were used to the near-darkness. Finally, when her pupils adjusted themselves, Sarah examined the room.

It was completely devoid of features, and it was very small, not much bigger than a walk-in closet. The walls were stark white, save for the green glow that was bouncing off of them. The green glow itself came from a large crystal ball that was situated on a polished table. Green fog was swirling around in it. Entranced, Sarah reached out a finger and touched it.

As soon as her flesh met the crystal, the effect was like a magnet. Her entire hand slapped onto the ball, and green fog entwined her fingers, binding them there. There was a sucking sound, and Sarah felt herself becoming depleted of energy as the fog in the crystal changed from a green color to a drab gray. 

With that, Sarah Slytherin collapsed.

# # # 

The first thing that the teachers at Hogwarts did was inform the parents of the students that were missing. This basically meant that the Weasleys, the Grangers and the Malfoys were coming, as Harry didn't have any parents, and the other four were practically under the supervision of the school.

It was not a very happy meeting. Mrs. Weasley and Granger sat sobbing into their husbands' shoulders, Mr. Granger was deathly pale and silent, and Mr. Weasley and Malfoy were glaring daggers at each other, as if it was the other person's fault that their son was missing.

Sybille Sandstone had brought her best crystal ball with her, in hopes that she could get a vision of one of the children, or the castle itself. Mr. Malfoy was nearly beside himself with impatience.

"Woman, what is taking so gods-cursed _long_?!" he asked, drumming his fingers on the glossy table at which he sat. Sybille Sandstone and Sybill Trelawney both glared at him.

"You must have patience to See correctly, _sir_," Sybill Trelawney told him, with an acidic clip to her voice. "You wouldn't want us to be hasty and See something that isn't there, would you?" Lucius Malfoy said no more, but leaned back in his chair, grumbling about wasting time.

Mr. Weasley sighed. "He does have a point, though," he said, glaring at Mr. Malfoy. Mr. Malfoy glared back just as hatefully. "Can't we go through this _any_ faster?" Sybill Trelawney sighed, and was about to answer, before Sybille Sandstone interrupted her.

"Watch out!" she cried. The white, smoky haze in the ball was quickly darkening and turning gray. Finally, it was overfilled with the smog, and it exploded, sending tiny bits of glass all over. People cried out in pain as little glass fragments bit into their skin.

The gray smoke whirled around the room a few times, like a comet with a long, misty tail. Finally it stopped. The adults watched in awe as the gray mist started shaping itself into something.

The gray smoke-image of Sarah Slytherin stared balefully out at the group, gray eyes blinking against gray skin, which nearly blended in with a gray dress of the same color. Smoky gray ringlets of hair fell to her shoulders. It was an exact replica of Sarah, save that she was totally gray. She was holding a puddle of something in her left hand, and a gray flame danced around in it.

--_I suppose that that's why I blacked out_,-- came her voice. But she didn't move her lips to speak; the voice was just projected into their brains. The entire group was silent with awe for a moment, but then Mrs. Weasley spoke up.

"Please! Please, do you know where my son is? Ron?" she asked plaintively. Sarah sighed and shook her head.

--_No, I'm sorry, but I don't. No Luke, I don't know where Draco is either, or anyone for that matter. I was looking for them_,-- she finished, glumly. Now Dumbledore fired a question.

"Just where _are_ you, anyway?" he asked, eyebrows furrowing together thoughtfully. Sarah shrugged and shook her head.

--_I have no freaking idea. Well, its called Castle Sapius, but, that doesn't help me much, but I do think that it is the castle that I keep on seeing_.-- Dumbledore scowled at the ceiling in thought. 

While he was doing that, Sarah let some of the wax she had in her hand slip through her fingers. It landed on her foot, and splattered on the table.

--_Of all the god-cursed things_...-- she trailed off, scraping some of the ghostly wax off of her shiny shoe. When she straightened herself up again, something odd happened. She felt like she was fading away. In fact, she was fading away. Sarah's vision fogged up, and the projection of herself grew fainter and fainter until she was gone.

The group of adults looked at each other, not much enlightened. Castle Sapius? That didn't do anybody any good, as nobody had ever heard of it before. Professor McGonagall stood up and straightened her glasses.

"What does everybody say to a field trip to the library?"

# # #

Sarah awoke on the floor of the crystal ball room, feeling very groggy and sick. Did she really go to Hogwarts, or was that just a dream? She then heard a voice.

"_There_ you are, Sarah. We had the whole castle on alert for you." The voice was very deep pitched and even friendly. She craned her neck to look at the person that was talking to her, but then something was thrust into her mouth and forced down her throat. It was very thick, syrupy, and tasted like a disgusting mixture of overly sweetened jellybeans. Then she was very, very sleepy. Perhaps even sleepier than she had ever been in her life. Nothing mattered now. The mystery of the castle, the disappearance of her friends nothing. She just wanted to sleep.

"Just sleep, my young friend, we will see to things later on." The voice waved in and out of Sarah's ears. A part of her screamed to stay awake, but, not a very big part. Finally, she put her head down on the hard tile and fell into a dreamless slumber.

# # #

Robert picked at one of the fraying edges of his gray outfit and sighed. It was so dreadfully _boring_ in here. There was no clock, no timepiece, not even a view of the sun in the sky to give a hint to the time. Besides, from what he had seen of the sky, there probably was no sun in the first place. Robert sighed again and looked around at the rest of the room.

Gabriel had long since given up beating on the walls and yelling, since all it had gained her was a hoarse voice and sore, bloody palms. She sat there now, mumbling things, (probably curse words) and gently massaging her mangled hands.

Hayley was as sedate and calm as usual, but, Robert noticed, that her bottom lip often started to quiver uncontrollably and she often had to bite it to keep herself from losing it. Her coppery hair was plastered to her face by both sweat and silent tears. Robert grimaced and looked on, gnawing on his knuckle uncomfortably.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were situated on the far side of the room, murmuring to each other in such soft whispers, that no matter how hard Robert tried, he couldn't hear a word. Instead of straining his ears further, he looked at Draco, who was still out cold on a pallet. The Dark Arts must really be exhausting, thought Robert with a slight bit of cynical glee.

What bothered Robert most about this place was the lack of air circulation. He wasn't claustrophobic, but with an entire room that was the same perpetual gray color, with only an iron oil lamp to break the drab monotony of it all, it was rather oppressive.

Putting his head between his knees, he gave the first plea for help that came to his mind. "Where the hell are you, Sarah?"

# # #

Meanwhile, the adults were basically scouring the entire library for information about this castle Sapius, and doing it noisily, much to Madam Pierce's annoyance. It had been about an hour, when Lucius Malfoy and his ever-present temper kicked in for their listening pleasure.

"This is stupid!" he cried after going through an entire volume of castles without finding anything. "Can't we do this any _faster_?!" Dumbledore looked at him with sort of an amused twinkle in his eye.

"Mr. Malfoy, I assure you, we will find your son and bring him back, in one piece," he finished. Mr. Malfoy was about to retort, when he sneezed.

"Bless you," McGonagall said crisply, turning a page in a book. Then she too sneezed. Dumbledore was about to say something, probably 'bless you', when all of a sudden, he sneezed too. Then Mr. Weasley sneezed. As did Mrs. Weasley, Mr. and Mrs. Granger, and then, finally, Madame Pierce.

"What in the blazes.." started Mr. Granger, but he was interrupted by Mrs. Weasley's squeal.

"_Look_!" she cried, pointing to the air above Mrs. Granger's head. A bright pink butterfly was floating about in the dusty air, as if looking for something. The adults watched, spellbound, as the insect flitted over to a bottom shelf, and landed on a very thick, dust-covered book.

Mr. Malfoy strided over and hefted the large book onto the table. It was very large, and covered by at least a half-inch of dirt. Sneaking a suspicious look at the butterfly that was perched on the edge of a chair, he gingerly wiped away some of the dust from the book.

It was bound in fine brown leather, tanned and faded from age. In the center of the book there was loopy, elegant gold script pressed into the soft leather, in a handwriting that Mr. Malfoy couldn't read. He squinted at it, when someone shouldered up to him and tapped the cover of the book with a wand.

It was Mr. Weasley. "Transleitor," he said tapping the letters one by one with a now glowing wand tip. The letters started to untwist themselves from each other, and then began retwining into more elegant letters - in English. Mr. Weasley looked smugly at Mr. Malfoy.

"'Had to learn that one to translate old muggle documents. What? A spell that the great Lucius doesn't know? Aren't we amazed?" He couldn't help it. After years of torment he had taken from Lucius, it was a nice feeling to give him a little hell for it. Lucius sneered elegantly back at him.

"Watch your tongue, Weasley," he snarled, reaching for his wand. "Or I'll see to it that you don't know _any_ spells." McGonagall had had enough. Shouldering herself between the two men, she impaled them both with her infamous icy stare.

"You two are acting like children! Now, what's more important here, your squabbles, or your own sons?" Lucius and Arthur glared at each other again, but put their wands away.

"Sorry, Professor," they both mumbled at the same time, still keeping their eyes locked on the other person. Professor McGonagall raised a black eyebrow as the letters finished moving into place.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," she muttered to herself, remembering Arthur and Lucius's pointless schoolboy arguments in their younger years. The letters finally finished sculpting themselves into shape.

__

The Ballad of the Underworld

McGonagall looked at the butterfly, Sprite, with interested disdain in her gaze. Sighing miserably, she grabbed a handful of the thinner-than-normal paper and flipped it over. Dust flung up, clouding her glasses. When she wiped them off, she saw that a part of the book had been ripped out, and it fluttered to the ground. More out of habit than anything, she bent over to pick it up. Unfolding it, she was surprised to see that it only had one four-lined phrase on it, while the other pages were chalk-full of tiny print. She read the small quote quickly.

__

Tonight is when I strike

The moment 'ere the morn

Castle Sapius 'tis the setting

The king be forewarned.....

The rest had been inked out. Minerva stared at it. She remembered vaguely about this play, this part had been written by an insane man bent on world domination, Khalibulus, and this was an exert from his diary. It took a couple of minutes for her to register that it said 'Castle Sapius' in it. When she did, she squealed. The rest of the adults, who had either been bickering or trying to stop the fighters turned around and looked at her. Minerva looked at the bright pink butterfly, which was still sitting placidly on the chair, appearing very pleased with itself.

"What's wrong, Minerva?" Dumbledore asked. McGonagall just shook her head and placed a hand upon her heaving chest.

"I think we just found our Castle Sapius...I want everybody in here to find any kind of information, be it an entire book or a sentence, on The Ballad of the Underworld. Now," she finished, still looking pale. Everybody looked at each other strangely, but didn't argue. Nobody argued with Professor McGonagall when she had that tone of voice.

Sprite flitted from the room, unnoticed by anyone.

# # #

Sarah swam to a conscious state for the second day, feeling very groggy, and with a very bad headache. Pressing a hand to her forehead, she looked around. She was in the same bedroom that she had started in earlier. Groaning, she flopped miserably back onto the bed, realizing that she was no closer now to finding her comrades than she was before. She then heard a voice.

"You're up, Sarah. It's about time." Sarah roused her head again, and saw another person looking at her, with a slight smile on his lips.

He had jet-black hair, not unlike Sarah's own, that was cropped very close to his head in a boyish style, that was slicked back with a handful of grease, to keep it from going awry. Under the headful of hair was a pair of black eyes, set into a pale face with a sharp-looking nose and thin lips that were pursed together in a semi-smile. He wore a black velvet tunic, and a black undershirt with poufy sleeves. With this he wore black leggings with black leather boots. Sarah made a face. Why was everything here _black_? Around his neck was a rather large silver medallion with an emerald set into it, strung on a thin silver chain. The light that bounced off of the green fire reflected into the jewel, which reflected into her eyes, making her wince. The boy smiled, and pointed at a lamp by her bed.

"Eleastrapa," he whispered. The lamp sprang up with a bright purple flame. Sarah stared sadly at it. In all events, it was a pretty flame, but she missed the normal red fire at home. The boy drug a chair up to Sarah's bedside and sat there, folding his long fingers politely in his lap, still smiling at her. Sarah shuddered. That smile was starting to get creepy.

"I assume that you have many questions," he said in a scratchy-smooth voice. "And I am here to answer them, young Slytherin." Sarah started and looked at the boy. He appeared to be only about seventeen, not that much older than she was herself. What could he possibly know?

"Where are my friends, where am I, why am I here, why am I dressed like this, why are you dressed like that, why can't I go home, who are you, and what do _you_ want from _me_?" Sarah smiled when the boy looked a bit taken aback. He probably hadn't expected an entire barrage of questions at once. But then he regained his calm composure.

"You are at Castle Sapius. You are dressed like that, because this is a regal place. Same with me. The rest you will know in time." He got up and strided to the window, and pulled up a curtain, looking at the drab landscape. Sarah wrinkled her nose. That was not the answer that she wanted.

"You can tell me who you are, at least," she snapped at him. "You owe me that at best for abducting me from my home!" Her voice started out choppy and snappish, and rode a crescendo of emotion until it ended up almost at an irritated shout. The boy smiled, still looking out the window at the land. Sarah couldn't figure out just what he was looking at. Finally, he let the curtain fall back into place, and looked at her.

"You press hard, Sarah. All right, then. My name is Tom. Tom Marvolo Riddle," he said quietly. Sarah went pale white in the face, and scrambled to the farthest edge of the large bed. A newbie at the world of magic herself, even she knew whom Tom Marvolo Riddle was. 

"But-but-but," she chattered to herself, staring at the boy, who looked very, amused. "You're over fifty years old, almost dead, and roaming the forests of Albania somewhere!" she nearly screamed at him, as if trying to get him to reason. Tom (Voldemort?) chuckled and shook his head.

"Well, so you do pay attention in Wizarding Current Events. I know that I never did." He settled himself back onto the chair he was once on, and looked at Sarah. "I'm not over fifty years old, I'm dead," he said flatly. Sarah raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to speak, but Tom cut her off.

"Let me finish. But, since I was already half-dead anyway, I couldn't completely die. I just couldn't live in the materialistic world - your world. But, I had the power and the resources to create my own little storybook dimension, I guess you could call it. Actually, Castle Sapius is a setting in a favorite book of mine, _The Ballad of the Underworld_. This is what it was like after the Good King Archibald was knocked off of the throne, and Khalibulus took over the Overworld and brought up the Underworld." He stopped, and almost dreamily gazed out the window at the pink-purple cloud haze before snapping back to life. "You got that?" Sarah bit her lip, her mind not exactly registering the fact that she was carrying on a civil conversation with the most evil wizard of all time.

"So...So you're trying to tell me that you're actually dead, but, this is an alternate dimension, created by you? So...What exactly are you? A ghost? A spirit? What?" The younger form of Voldemort shook its head.

"No. You're not reading me. When I created this world, I also created a body for myself. I can't make my own body in the materialistic world, but I can hold a body shape in this reality. See for yourself." He walked up to Sarah and stuck out a hand. Sarah looked at him apprehensively, but gingerly reached out and grabbed it. The flesh gave under her pressure like any other - any other living person's would do. Voldemort smiled and took his hand back.

"I chose my eighteen-year-old self, because when I was nineteen, I seriously started to get into the Dark Arts, and my body form took on a less...less appealing shape, shall we say." Sarah really didn't feel like pressing that issue any further than it had to be pressed.

"What about my friends?" Sarah whispered. "I won't cooperate any further unless you bring them here." Sarah knew that those words were foolhardy, she seriously doubted the fact that the former Dark Lord would stand her insolence for long. But, to her great surprise, he heaved a gigantic sigh and decided to humor her.

"Chenelle!" he called loudly. In a few moments, Sarah could hear the pattering of fast-moving feet down the hallway. The door swung open, and a red-faced, panting Chenelle flung herself into the doorway.

"You called, Master?" she breathed out, nearly keeling over from lack of breath. Tom nodded curtly, and spoke.

"Bring Miss Slytherin's friends here, now, please." Chenelle looked at him, mild surprise in her vibrant green eyes.

"But you said-" Voldemort didn't let her finish.

"I said now, Chenelle," he said in a low, dangerous whisper. Chenelle backed up a step, one hand on her golden pendant, which had begun to shimmer eerily. Sweat beading on her face, she nodded, and backed up another step.

"As you wish, Master Tom." With a quick nod to Sarah and a deep bow to the form of Voldemort, Chenelle left the room as hurriedly as possible. When she had turned the corner, Sarah saw a short flash of purple magic, and she could assume that Chenelle did some Dark Apperating. 

Sarah wanted to ask what was going on with all of the pendants that Chenelle and Tom wore, but saw the look on the former Voldemort's face, and thought better of it.

# # #

Gabriel sighed and looked at the gray ceiling, her eyes unfocusing and making her head hurt. She was sure that she had been in here for at least five hours, and it was beginning to get so boring it was almost unbearable. Shutting her eyes, she tried to go to sleep to make the time go faster, but she knew it was futile, since her muscles felt all jumpy and itchy. They wanted to get up and walk, not go to sleep. Sighing, she sat up and started to stretch, wincing as long-inactive legs screamed in stiff pain. She didn't think that she had sat still for so long in her life. But she was about to be delivered.

The light in the small oil lamp started to flicker and grow larger, and not to mention, larger and purple. She sat up and looked at it.

The flame started to send up little sparks, which landed on the gray floor, leaving little scorch marks. The entire group (including Draco, who had woken up about an hour ago) backed up against the wall as far as they could go. Then the lamp blew off of its hinges, striking the wall and going out. It was now pitch-black in the small room, and Gabriel was not the only one that screamed. There was a small hole, about the size of a half-dollar on the top of the room where the oil lamp had been mounted, and a long, snakelike, tube-shaped mass of purple energy sifted through it.

Gabriel winced as the light dissipated, and opened her eyes again to see a girl, looking about her age, in a brown dress that resembled a potato sack that was much too big for her, pure green eyes, nearly white skin, and lips that were redder than her Quidditch uniform. She wore fine leather sandals that clung daintily to her small feet, and a large golden medallion that held a ruby hung from her neck. In her right hand, she held a black candle that sported a green flame on the edge of it. She looked around at the occupants of the room. They looked back at her.

"Medalios Prepotos," the girl whispered, and Gabriel felt a tingling sensation shoot up her legs and engulf her body. She tried to scream, but it was too late. 

She was gone.

# # # 

Minerva McGonagall rubbed her tired eyes. The entire group of adults, save Sybille Sandstone and Sybill Trelawney, had been in the library nearly all day, and they still hadn't found so much more than a scrap of other information on Castle Sapius or The Ballad of the Underworld, that was, until they heard Mrs. Granger's shrill voice from across the library, in the fairytale section.

"I found something! I found something!" she cried. All of the other adults dropped whatever they were looking through and ran to her side. 

She had in her hand a thin blue book, which was very worn and torn with much use and age. It was slightly covered by a thin layer of white dust, but a quick swipe of Dumbledore's handkerchief covered that. In big silver print, it read:

Castles of the Fairytale and the Opera, Brought to Life!

It was evidently meant for younger readers, and had been very much used, because part of the book had a hole burned through it by acid, and the silver covering on the letters was coming off, leaving only a dark blue residue where the letter had been. But, nobody seemed to mind. Mrs. Granger had her thumb in the book, marking a page. Quickly, she flipped it open.

It was a half-and-half picture. One half of the picture had a beautiful castle, with white brick, standing out against a clear blue sky, with a fluffy cloud floating by every once in awhile. There was a clear pond, surrounded by green grass, a flowerbed spilling out with all kinds of exotic-looking flowers and brown dirt paths laced with ivory-colored seashells. Colorful banners waved from every turret roof, with soldiers on guard. There was also a couple, obviously a prince and a princess, sitting on a bench waving merrily at them.

The other half showed what must have been the same castle, but in a very different perspective. The castle was black and foreboding, the sky a bone-chilling mix of grays, pinks, and purples. There was no greenery to be seen, and the once clear pond was now soiled and almost black. Only scraps of faded, defeated fabric fluttered like grimy signs of defeat where the colorful banners once stood. No soldiers were to be seen anywhere. There were no paths, as the ground was barren and cracked mud and a dry wind whipped dust into the air. Even Mr. Malfoy shuddered.

"Pictured here are the two eras of Castle Sapius, as told about in The Ballad of the Underworld, written by Zavier the Zany during his years in Azkaban (1500-1536, his death). It is about a lovely maiden who is seduced by the evil Khalibulus, and used as a vessel to bring up the horrors of the Underworld. Nobody knows how the story is finished, as the rest of Zavier's work was burned in the Great Fire of 1536," Mrs. Granger read, looking up at her companions when she had finished. Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully.

"So, Castle Sapius is a fictitious place made up by an insane man in the fifteen hundreds," he concluded dryly. "Are we positive that Miss Slytherin didn't misinterpret the name?" Lucius Malfoy shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. 

"You can create your own realities with the Dark Arts," he finally concluded. "If you have enough expertise in the area, that is. I sure as hell don't, I don't mind admitting it, actually. I don't even think that Voldemort can. No, Weasley," he snarled at Arthur, "I don't know that from personal experience." Dumbledore bit his lip.

"Mr. Malfoy is correct. I remember hearing that, but, who would want to construct their own reality, and lure eight children there?" 

"Someone very sick," Mrs. Weasley said matter-of-factly.

# # #

Lord Voldemort (Tom), was not exceedingly pleased when he learned of Sarah's choice of friends. When Hayley, Robert, Gabriel, Hermione, Ron, and especially Harry came into the room, his brows furrowed. He didn't seem to have that much of a problem with Draco, though, for reasons that we can all guess.

The newcomers were now all attired properly, not in the skimpy prisoners' outfits, but either in a black frock, or a tunic. Ron picked uncomfortably at his new outfit.

"I think I liked the gray getup better," he said as he adjusted his leggings. "I feel like I'm wearing a skirt." Harry hid a smile behind his hand.

Tom noticed this. Good, he thought, good that he doesn't know whom I am. That'll make things a lot easier. He cleared his throat, and the children snapped to attention.

"I am Tom, Tom Marvolo Riddle," he said clearly, looking at Harry Potter and the others, who staggered.

"_VOLDEMORT_?!" Harry cried, backing up into the farthest corner of the room. He didn't like this, as he was unarmed, and otherwise helpless. Tom watched him with an amused eye.

"I used to be. But, now is not the time to discuss past business, Potter. Sit down, why don't you?" Tom waved his hand, and a chair swept under Harry, bringing him back to where he had been standing before.

"What do _you_ want?" Harry asked, his voice oozing with fear, sarcasm, and bravery at the same time. Voldemort just sighed. 

Hermione raised an eyebrow. For the most evil wizard on the planet, or wherever we are, she thought, he sure is being civil, and actually decent. What's going on? Voldemort (or Tom Riddle) looked at her carelessly.

"The reason why, _Mudblood_, is that I know that you can't do anything here. You don't have any wand, and even if you did, you couldn't use it. Besides, you're not really talking to Voldemort. You're talking to Tom Riddle. For someone that is the queen of logic, you sure are acting pretty stupid," he finished with a bit of aloofness to his voice. Hermione bristled.

Well, maybe not that decent, she thought bitterly. If Tom Riddle read her thoughts at that moment, he didn't seem to care. Instead, he turned back to Harry.

"I don't want _anything_ to do with _you_, Potter," he snarled in a soft voice. "In fact, I'm feeling pretty generous today. I'm willing to let you, your fire-headed friend, the Mudblood," - Hermione bristled angrily again - "and Malfoy over there go. Scott free. It's your lucky day, Potter. I actually don't want to kill you. I really want you to be alive when I get enough power to leave this place, just to see the look on your face," he stopped, and backed down a bit. "But, when that happens, you'll be an old man, so I wouldn't worry about it." Ron, however, was still clutching onto part of his speech with interest.

"You're going to let us go?! No torture chamber? No to the death battle? Isn't this a little against the villain codebook, or something? You're going to let us leave? Just like that? For _free_?" Ron spat. Tom shook his head.

"No, my hot tempered friend. Nothing is for free, you should know that. You can go. But they-" he motioned to Robert, Hayley, Sarah and Gabriel, who paled "-have to stay." Harry was about to protest the unfairness of this, when Tom chanted something, and Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco were trapped inside a translucent, soundproof, purple-tinted bubble. Harry screamed soundlessly on the inside, while pounding on the bubble. Tom looked at him, amused for a second, before turning to the other four.

"Not to pressure you into a decision, or anything, but, just so you know, if you don't stay, they will stay, and go back to where you three came from." Gabriel, Hayley and Robert paled, and Sarah, who had no idea of what he was talking about, just stood there and looked confused. Tom Riddle went on.

"But, if you stay, I assure you, things will be better for you four than it would be for them," he motioned to the captives in the bubble. "I won't influence your decision any more." And with that, he walked off. The foursome gathered in a tight huddle, like they would before a Quidditch match.

"Well?" asked Hayley, her voice a little squeaky.

Robert shrugged. "Well what? What's there to be discussed?"

"I'd have this on my mind forever if we left them here," Gabriel said, hanging her head.

Sarah snorted. "You have too much of a conscious. But, think of it this way. They have families, and we - or at least Gabriel and I, don't. There'd be a lotta suffering going on down yonder if we went back," she said, remembering the sobbing people she had seen earlier. Gabriel stared at her grouchy friend. She had never really heard her talk about anything in conjunction to family before.

"You're right," Robert said slowly. Hayley nodded, though it seemed to take a lot of effort to make her head do the motion. They turned back to Tom, who was waiting patiently.

"We're staying," Sarah said, trying not to make her voice quiver. Tom broke into a big toothy grin.

"I knew you'd see it my way," he said. He clapped his hands, and the bubble started to shrink on its occupants, who were loitering inside. In an eye-blink's worth of time, Harry, Hermione, Ron and Draco were gone.

# # #

Imagine the adult's surprise when their children literally 'dropped' in on them. They had just given the picture of Castle Sapius to Professor Trelawney and Sybille Sandstone, so they could get a good image of the castle and maybe a glimpse of the children inside. It must be confessed, that even Dumbledore was beginning to think that they were relying a wee bit too much on Divination, and clutching at facts that a ghost-image of Sarah Slytherin had given them. Lucius opened his mouth and was about to make an irate remark about how this was taking so long, when the rest of the group (who was conveniently ignoring him) heard a loud,

"OOF!" They whipped around in time to see Lucius laying on the floor in surprise with Draco, dressed oddly in a tunic, laying practically on top of him, with his arms wrapped around his father's neck, as if he was clinging on for dear life. Next was Ron, who landed on top of Mr. Weasley, crying 'Mum! Dad!', and being glomped by his parents.

Hermione fell from seemingly nowhere, landing in an ungainly pile at her parents' feet. Her parents didn't even give her time to get up, they just wrapped their arms around their daughter, all three of them on a pile on the ground.

Lastly was Harry, who landed on his behind by the table. McGonagall, feeling a little sorry for him, since he had no parents to welcome him, walked up to him and gave his shoulders a little squeeze. She was rewarded by a watery smile, as Harry watched the other three families, jealous of even Malfoy, for having something that he could never have. Though he wasn't exactly sure that he would want Mr. Malfoy for a father, well...still, he was a father, at any rate.

"Where are the other four?" Sybill Trelawney wanted to know looking respectfully at the other Sybille that was across the table from her. She shrugged, and the other four children, hearing the conversation, dropped out of their parent's happy embraces for a moment, faces turning stark white.

"Oh my God..." Malfoy started, face going even paler than normal.

"They accepted..." Hermione said, looking like she was going to be sick all over herself.

"They accepted what?" asked Professor McGonagall, interested.

"Tom Riddle's bargain..." Ron trailed off, looking off into the misty white swirl of Sybill's crystal ball, wanting to See something in it for once.

# # #

"So," asked Gabriel nervously, about two minutes after their other four counterparts had left. "What do you want from us?" Tom Riddle walked up to her and tilted her face up to his, with one of his long, bony fingers.

"Gryffindor to the bone," he said, with a bit of resentment in his voice. "Well, anyway, you'll be very apt to learn..." he trailed off into nothing.

Hayley, who had been looking wistfully at where the purple bubble had been before, wishing that she had been inside of it, looked up.

"Apt to learn what?" Tom looked at her, and then asserted himself to look at the group as a whole.

"I," he said with a bit of haughtiness in his voice, "was the Dark Lord of your world for a while, but, I can no longer hold form in it, not even if I share another person's body and soul." The foursome looked at each other nervously. What was he getting at?

"I was the Dark Lord," he repeated, "and now, you four are my apprentices."

Author's note: Sorry, guys. I would have had this up earlier, except for the fact that my AOL account crashed. -_-;;. I decided to try my hand at portraying Voldemort in a different light...More of a cynical bad than a die-hard-evil-gotta-kill-Harry-Potter bad. Apprenticed in the Dark Arts? I wonder how Hayley Hufflepuff is gonna take that.....Well, tell me what you think! I finally got to the castle, did you like it? (Reviews are ALWAYS welcome, especially the nice, ego-pumping ones that always make me feel better after getting a C+ on an important math test _.....But, constructive criticism is always helpful too!)

~Moxie ^_^ (As always, if you don't like, no flames!) 

Disclaimer: Everything that is in the Harry Potter books is Mrs. Rowling's. Everything that isn't, is property of me. (Yes, that is including everything in The Ballad of the Underworld, in case you were wondering!)


	7. Forever Is a Long Time

"Apprentices?" asked Hayley faintly, after a couple of awkward moments of silence. "Dark Apprentices? You're joking, right?" Tom Riddle flashed her a grin, white teeth contrasting starkly against his dark apparel and features.

"I'm afraid not, Hufflepuff dearest." He made a sign with his fingers, and Gabriel felt a slight jerk of movement on the left side of her scalp.

Looking around to see what was wrong, Gabriel saw four rather large strands of hair; a springy curl from Sarah, a waver lock from Hayley, a handful of Robert's cropped cut, and a group of straight blond hairs from Gabriel herself. They were all floating in the air, outlined in purple magic, twisting about eerily. Gabriel shuddered.

There was an explosion of magic (strangely, it was white), and where the locks of hair had been before, there were four silver pendants, golden with strange, exotic carvings decorating the perimeter of the circular object. In the center of all of them was a rather large black stone, glistening in the dim light, and reflecting swirls of color back at them. Tom made a careless flick of his wrist, and one pendant flew to each individual. 

"Those are Binding Pendants, spelled to keep you here. The stone inside is a black opal, the best kind of stone in the world to store magic. If you try anything funny, or attempt to destroy them, the opal will take your life essence right out of you. So," he concluded, "don't try anything _stupid_, and you'll be fine."

Robert studied the medallion (which was about the size of his palm) and moved his fingers along the elaborate etching it had on it. He could almost feel the magic of it radiating up into his arms, connecting to his life essence. He sighed, and noted that there was a slim silver chain strung on the pendant. He put it around his neck, and swallowed, as it seemed to glow. Noting his appearance in a wavery mirror, he sighed again. It was too bad that an article of jewelry that was so pretty had to be so evil.

"We shall start the lessons tomorrow. Today, you need sleep to rejuvenate from the wounds of inter-dimensional travel. Chenelle, show them to their rooms," he ordered the girl in the potato-sack dress that was standing guard by the ground. Chenelle nodded obediently.

"Yes, Master Tom. Come along, you four," she beckoned. Chenelle led them out of the room, with Tom Riddle staring after them.

Chenelle picked up a clear orb that appeared to resemble a miniature crystal ball. She muttered something, and the ball filled with that eerie green glow, throwing light shadows around the halls. Picking up her plain brown dress, she nodded, and led the foursome down the long, empty corridors of the castle.

Finally, they came to a hallway that seemed a little peculiar. This hallway seemed to be a little brighter than the other ones, and the one picture that was in the hallway was one of a bright, sunny day, that made Robert feel a little better, a little less homesick then he was before. In this hallway, there were four doorways, and Chenelle pointed to all of them, explained that there was a bathroom in each one, and to summon for her if they needed any assistance. With that, and a quick bow, Chenelle left. 

The girls stood outside to talk for a little bit, but Robert was in no such mood. He excused himself with a polite nod, and saying that he was tired. The girls nodded back, and went to talking in quiet whispers. Robert staggered into his room.

It was the only room that he had seen that was furnished in a color other than black. It was navy blue, close to black, but not black. The room was furnished with mahogany wood, stained a warm honey color, and there was a large mirror on the Western Wall. The bed itself was larger than life, and on either side was a window that was about four feet wide and at least fifteen feet tall, surrounded by navy curtains. There was a huge dresser under the mirror, and two doors on either side of the room. One, he assumed, was the bathroom, and the other was probably a link to one of the girls' rooms.

Too tired to do much else, Robert stripped off his boots and his heavy tunic, now only wearing the leggings and the light undershirt. He flopped on the gigantic bed and pulled the covers around him, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep and wake up at the infirmary at Hogwarts, for his aches and pains. He didn't want to be here, he didn't want to become a Dark Wizard and work for the former Voldemort. But then he felt the medallion press into his chest as he rolled onto his stomach, and knew that that was not possible.

Too tired to get up, too awake to go to sleep, Robert lay there and let his mind wander. It hit upon various things - his old school - his crotchety aunt - The first day he had met the other girls and came to Hogwarts. He even got a short glimpse of his mother, who had died when he was three. She was tall and curvy, with long, reddish-brownish hair that fell to her shoulders in ringlets. But her face was a blur, and the image was whisked away as abruptly as it had come. Then another Tarot card entered his mind. One of the cards he had gotten from his first spread with Alex popped into his brain: the Death card.

It was a card of great change, and the change depended upon the events of the spread. Robert dimly supposed that the fact that he was going to become a Dark Wizard trained by Voldemort himself, that must have been a great change. He wasn't so sure if he liked this change at all.

Finally, the soft mattress that was cradling his body like a mother's arms, and the warmth of the blankets was too overpowering. Unable to think about anything else, Robert let himself pass over into sleep.

# # #

Harry was pacing the length of the Gryffindor common room anxiously, and Hermione and Ron were watching him. Finally, Ron put a hand up to his head.

"Harry, stop pacing like that. You're giving me a bad headache, and if I think I know what you're thinking about, running a rut into the Common room floor isn't going to bring Gabriel back." Harry smiled sardonically.

"Yes, but it's better than sitting down doing nothing," he said, stopping his movement for a few moments. Hermione sighed.

"You don't have to be doing nothing, you know," she said sensibly, "You could start studying your notes for the Astronomy test tomorrow, I haven't seen you touch your notes yet, for that matter." She motioned to the pile of haphazardly stacked sheets of parchment on the table next to her. Harry looked at them and shook his head.

"I just - just hate sitting around being _helpless_! You _know_ what I _mean_!" he cried, walking over to the fireplace and placing a hand on the mantle. Ron sighed.

"Then what do you suggest we do? It was one thing when Voldemort was in the school, but - but Harry, he's in another dimension for Christ's sake! What are we going to do? Build a machine that's can rip through the fabric of time? How do you suppose that we do _that_?" 

Harry sighed and looked into the crimson fire, which was still leaping merrily in its iron grate. He didn't really know what he wanted, but he knew that he couldn't have it.

# # # 

Hayley couldn't sleep that night. It didn't matter how comfortable her bed was, or how warm her covers were, she couldn't sleep. She was terribly homesick for one thing, and when she thought of Hogwarts her eyes began to burn painfully, but the tears wouldn't come. Rolling over, she staggered out of bed and pulled back one of the curtains. It was about the same sky as before, save it was a tad darker. Thinking about the yellow sun and the stars twinkling at night just made her homesickness worse, and she dropped the curtain and let it fall into place. Her green fire in the fireplace had been extinguished a long time ago, and it was pitch black in her room, almost. There was a lamp in the room also, but she had no idea on how to light it and she sat there in the dark until there was a creak to the left of her.

It was Gabriel. She had her hair knotted back into a dilapidated ponytail, and smiled crookedly at Hayley, who was relieved to see a familiar face.

"Hi," Gabriel said, in an unusually quiet voice. "Mind if I join you? I can't sleep either." Hayley nodded and moved over on her spot on the bed. But that was really unnessasary, as the bed was huge. Gabriel sat across from her and picked at a loose thread in the bedspread. They said nothing, just glad to be in each other's company, when the door on the other side of Hayley's room opened. In walked Robert and Sarah, and Sarah was holding something that was glowing in her hands. It was a gigantic crystal sphere.

"We thought you all might be lonely," Sarah said with a conceding smirk. Robert managed a weak smile, his face ghostly illuminated in the light of the sphere.

"Actually, we were going to see if you guys weren't too tired to be part of an experiment with us," he said wearily. Hayley smiled slightly. Anything to keep her mind off of where she was and where she wanted to be was fine with her. Sarah looked at the other two girls and smiled sleepily.

"While you guys were where ever you were, I was wandering around this castle, and I found something interesting. I found a room with a crystal ball in it, and by some means of sorcery, I was - well, maybe not me as in myself, but a projection of me was able to travel back to Hogwarts. I don't know how I did it, or what happened, but I think it might be nice to at least get a glimpse at what is going on back at home, don't you?" she asked, shooting half-lidded gray eyes around the bed. Hayley and Gabriel nodded numbly.

"Well, I found a crystal ball in one of my drawers, and well, let's try this and see if it works." She set the glowing ball in the center of them and looked at it.

"Put your hand on it and concentrate on going back to Hogwarts," she instructed. Gabriel raised a sleepy eyebrow, highly skeptical, but did so.

They all put their left hands on the ball, and started to breathe in sync. Soon, the thudding of their hearts fell into rhythm with the breathing. They shut their eyes and thought about magic, schoolhouses, friends, and whatever else made them think of their magical school. Then, little bolts of colored power - red, blue, yellow and green - started to play all over their arms, slithering in the spots in-between their fingers, and racing up into their hair. After about ten minutes of this, they all passed out.

# # #

Because of the time change that warped in-between the two dimensions, it was around breakfast time at Hogwarts when the quartet was trying to communicate with its occupants. Instead of the normal happy gossip that would have been taken place, the talking had been dowsed to a low murmur. Essex was picking at her food miserably, talking idly with the other people that were sitting at her table, her eyes occasionally gravitating towards the empty seat where Sarah normally sat, when there was a loud explosion.

The entire school looked up; the murmurs now increased to shouts of confusion. Mist was swirling around in the corners of the room, and the teachers stood up, looking around. The blobs of mist started to shape.

It was not unlike when Sarah had been projected here, except for the fact that instead of it being a perfect image, the four ghost-sculptures of Hayley, Sarah, Robert and Gabriel were not as exact. There was an exact duplicate of their bodies from the waist up, but below that, it was like a billowing cloud of gray fog. The forms opened their mouths to speak, but the words were all chopped up, like they were talking into a gigantic fan.

Finally they gave up trying to verbally communicate. Sarah, looking disgruntled, shoved her ghostly hands into the swirl of mist that must have been her bottom half. Then her eyes widened, as if she had struck something. Turning her ghostly form around to face a terrified Draco, she winked, and withdrew something from her pocket, and dropped in into the pitcher of pumpkin juice. The orange liquid slopped over the sides, dowsing everything and getting mixed in with the grits that had been lain out on the table. Then the vision of all four children started to flicker - like an image on a badly tuned television - twist, and finally dissipate into nothing. The entire hall was silent for a second. What had that been all about?

In one abrupt movement, Draco lunged for the pumpkin juice pitcher and without much regard for the floor, turned it upside down.

The juice hit on the floor, and sloshed all over the place. Along with the liquid, there was a loud 'clink' of the sound of thick glass striking tile. On the tile, covered with a thin layer of pumpkin juice, was a spherical object. Draco picked it up and wiped off the orangy residue with a clean napkin.

It was Sarah's Lumosphere. The ball was fogged up on the inside, there was a huge chip in the thick glass, and the colored orbs inside of it were gone. But it was definitely her Lumosphere. It must have gotten abused during her journey through the dimensions.

Seeing this, Draco felt bad all over again for being here, while Sarah was still stuck at that 'Castle Sapius' place. Wrapping the forsaken sphere in the napkin, Draco discreetly put it in his pocket.

# # # 

When the foursome finally came to, they were all lying in the same bed, in odd positions. Gabriel had her head hanging off of her bed; Hayley was all twisted up like a pretzel. Robert had completely fallen off of the bed and was lying in a mangled heap on the floor. Sarah was laying on both of her arms that were bent awkwardly behind her back. On top of all of this, a scowling Tom Riddle was looming over top of them, looking like he could chew lead and spit bullets.

"What do you think you were doing?" he asked indignantly. "Interdimensional travel, even in spirit form, is very dangerous! You could have been killed!" All four of his apprentices groaned, and tried to rise out of their uncomfortable positions.

"I didn't know you _cared _so much," snarled Gabriel. Tom's white nostrils flared with angry annoyance.

"I _care_ because it won't do to have my students _killed_ on the first day, before we even _begin_!" he snapped back. "Up. Get up. All of you. _NOW_," he ordered. Robert drug himself off the floor with a groan. It was too early, his mind felt all muddled, and the right side of his head was throbbing, probably from where he had struck the floor when he fell out of the bed the night before. He was in no mood for this at all.

Sarah shook her arms, which were so asleep that she couldn't move them properly, and they felt numb. "So, Tommy boy, what're we doing today?" she asked, wincing as pain shot through her arms like a blazing fire. Tom sighed and rubbed at one of his temples.

"Today we're going to experiment with the Dark Arts, and see how good you are at them. For the last time, Hufflepuff, get up. It's breakfast time." He dragged all four of them, grumbling and complaining all of the way, out of the room and down to the Dining Hall.

# # # 

"I want you to light that candle up over there for me," Tom Riddle said to Gabriel, pointing to a black candle on the other side of the room at which they were standing. Gabriel sighed. They had been at this for about three hours, and nobody had really been able to take to the Dark Arts very well. The only one that had managed anything was Hayley, who moved a leaf about an inch, but she was still out cold. And nobody knew if she had actually moved it or not, or if the wind had blown it over, and Hayley had fainted from the effort.

"Point at it, and say 'Somul'," Tom directed her. Gabriel planted her legs, and concentrated on the wick of the black candle.

"Somul," Gabriel said wearily, expecting nothing to happen. But something actually did happen this time.

A whirling feeling erupted in the back of her skull, making her sick. Then a feeling of pure evil swept through her. The feelings of anguish, suffering, fear and vile emotions all in one foul swoop. Frightened, Gabriel threw herself out of the magic. Tom Riddle drew his brows together in an irritated look.

"Why did you stop? You were about to light it, but when you threw the Darkness out of you, you melted the candle!" he pointed to the candelabra, which had a big glob of melted black wax drooling all over the brass. Gabriel wiped her forehead, as sweat was beginning to bead there.

"That was terrifying! All of that evil feeling just to light a candle?! There's no way in hell that I'm going to be a Dark Wizard, if I have to deal with that every time I call on your great Darkness, or whatever you call it. I want to go home! Why can't you just send us back and choose some other people that would be better suited for your job?" Gabriel wailed, her voice wavering towards hysteria. Tom stared at her with a look that was almost - almost piteous, but them it changed to a look of innocent balefulness.

"You'll get used to it. After a while, you won't notice it at all. It's a minor irritation, but as I already said, you'll get used to it. I chose you for the Dark Arts, because it is your destiny to be a student of the Darkness, and you will serve it well. You will be a good vassal for me, and then we will have power. Don't worry about going home. You will go home, eventually, but first, you have to know how to do curses, and if you can't light a bloody candle, then we've got a ways to go, right?" he asked, voice starting to get annoyed. Gabriel sighed.

"Look, we've been at this for about four hours. Don't we deserve a break? We've got all of the time in the world, literally, to learn about the Dark Arts," she pleaded. Tom sighed and rubbed his temple - his favorite sign when he was very exasperated. 

"Very well. We will begin this again tomorrow," he said, almost sadly. With that, he muttered something and disappeared in a flash of purple light. Hayley, who had just groggily arisen, groaned and staggered to a sitting position.

"I suppose that that means that we can go wherever we want," she sighed as she leaned on her palms tiredly. Robert looked at the rest of the group.

"I say we split up and take different parts of the castle. That way we can get a vague idea of the layout of this place," he said. Gabriel sighed and looked at the dark walls of the castle. It did make sense, but she didn't really want to.

"Oh, very well. I'll see you at dinner then, I suppose," she sighed, taking the eastern door, from the room. Sarah and Robert looked at each other until Sarah gave them all a mock salute and left through the southern passage.

Robert sighed and gave a hand to Hayley, who accepted it and stood up on wobbly legs, dusting off her dress awkwardly. Robert nodded to her.

"I'll see you later, Hayley," he said with a slight bow, while maneuvering towards the northern exit. Hayley looked somberly at the door that he disappeared through. She didn't want to be alone, but it looked like she had no choice. Heaving a great sigh, Hayley headed towards the eastern wing of the castle.

# # #

Robert had taken the passage that lead to the rooms that the foursome ate and lived in, so there really wasn't any new rooms. The only peculiar thing that he found was a room with a greenish glow, but it had a lock on it that wouldn't budge, no matter how hard he pulled on it. He'd expected as much; most locks don't just open with a slight tug, unless the lock putter-onner is very stupid. And Tom Riddle/Voldemort was not stupid.

Sighing, he wandered the halls until he heard some faint cursing and sneezing from behind a pair of double doors. He knew that the French doors led to the Dining room, as Robert and the girls had eaten lunch in there about a half-hour ago. He gently pushed open a door and peeked in.

It was a very large room, about two hundred feet tall at it's shortest, and about the size of four Hogwarts' Great Halls combined. About fifty magnificent, shiny-brass chandeliers hung from the ceiling, each laden with three hundred black candles each, and each candle sported a green flame on it, making for a dazzling spectacle of green light that blazed along the walls, ceiling and floor, illuminating even the farthest, darkest corners of the room. The huge table with it's black tablecloth was set for at least five hundred people, and the thick, carved crystal glasses caught the green light and shimmered gracefully. The walls were black, shiny granite, carved with intricate designs of wars and bloodshed. The entire thing was so disgustingly evil-looking that it was beautiful, and blood curdling at the same time.

But the thing that caught Robert's eye was the gargantuan fireplace that engulfed the entire Western Wall. The thing was so big that four normal-size houses could have fitted inside easily. The grate was taller than three men, and the logs were entire trunks of redwood trees. Under the grate, sweeping the coal dust around was a tiny, piteous-looking creature - Chenelle.

Robert walked up to her, his shoes making quite a racket against the floor, but Chenelle was so busy sweeping, sneezing and cursing that she didn't notice him. Robert crossed over the threshold into the fireplace and thrust a handkerchief under her nose. She was so surprised that she dropped her coal-sweeper, which sent up more dust, making them both cough.

"I'm so sorry, Master Ravenclaw, I didn't see you there. Do you need anything?" she asked hurriedly, not paying any attention to the handkerchief in Robert's outstretched hand. Robert just shook his head.

"No. I just came to see if you needed any help." He handed her the handkerchief and picked up the broom, and began sweeping haphazardly around the place. Chenelle flushed.

"N-n-no, I-I-I don't think that will be necessary, I can do it myself, Master Ravenclaw," she stuttered, genuinely surprised. Robert just started to sweep the grate.

"Rubbish. Don't call me 'Master Ravenclaw'. You make me sound like a dictator, or a slave owner, and I am neither. Robert is fine, if you please," he said absentmindedly.

Chenelle grumbled and picked up another broom, and started poking it into the corners of the large fireplace. "If you insist, Robert," she said grudgingly.

"Oh but I do," he remarked saucily. He shot a side-glance at Chenelle. "I have a few questions for you, if you don't mind." Chenelle shot him a side-glance.

"My boundless fountain of knowledge is yours to tap, Robert," she replied just as saucily. Robert stifled a loud snort of laughter.

"I thank you, Chenelle. But this is kind of personal. I want to know your alliance with Tom Riddle. Are you a hired servant?" he asked. Chenelle bit her lip, and for a moment, Robert regretted posting the question at all. He was about to call back his question, but Chenelle cut him off.

"Master Tom - rather, when he was Voldemort, killed my parents when I was five, and made off with me. He did a memory charm on me, so I would think I was his daughter, but it backfired somehow, and he forgot he was going to adopt me, and thought of me as a bound servant. He started calling me 'Chenelle' for some odd reason, and the name stuck," she whispered, throat starting to close over. Robert looked at her.

"What's your birthname?" Chenelle looked at the ceiling and scowled, as if she had a hard time remembering.

"Samantha. Samantha Bronxton," she said slowly, fingering the handle of her broom as she spoke. Robert felt sorry for her.

"I'm sorry Chene - I mean, Samantha," he said awkwardly. Chenelle/Samantha just shook her head.

"I'd prefer if you call me Chenelle. If the Master finds out I still know about my parents and such, things will not go well for me." Robert nodded.

"I understand." They worked in silence for a few moments, until Chenelle piped up again.

"So, what about you, Robert Ravenclaw? What's your story?" she asked. Robert took a deep breath and tried to think up a good way to summarize things.

# # #

While Robert was befriending Chenelle (Samantha?) in the Dining room, Gabriel had wandered into the armory of the castle.

It was a very tall, narrow room, so much that it was almost like a very large, tall hallway. Taking her handkerchief, she wiped a layer of dust off of a shield. There was etching in it in a tongue that Gabriel could not speak, nor read, but the letters were elegant and curvy, and the metal shield was large, and had two arm-straps on the back.

Picking it up, she put it on her left arm, which would have been her shield arm. It had a nice heft to it and gave Gabriel a feeling of charm, gracefulness and ferocity at the same time. It was a nice feeling.

Next to the shield was a long-handled saber. It was covered with dust thicker than wool, but Gabriel cleared some of it off, and the metal shone true under it. The handle was fine ivory, with carvings inlayed in it - not just for looks, but it gave grip to the user of it as well. The finial on the top of the handle was twisted intricately and sculpted up into a gorgeous updoing.

Gabriel hefted the saber as well as the shield. It was quite heavy, and when she tried a sidesweep with it, unused muscles burned a bit. There was a greenish mirror in the back of the white room, which reflected back a wavery image when Gabriel paraded in front of it. She giggled at how silly she was being. She was in a Dark Castle, learning the Dark Arts, facing the possibility of not ever returning home ever again, and here she was, playing dress up.

Striking a heroic pose in front of the mirror, she grinned. She had always loved tales of chivalry and courage, and one of her favorite stories was about King Author and his knights. Many a night she had spent dreaming about cantering over green fields on a horse (normally white), in the squadron of brave knights. She would be the fiercest warrior maiden that ever walked the planet, for her generation, and for many to come. She would wear beautifully handcrafted, light chain mail, and fight ogres, slay evil dragons, rescue the damsels in distress and the like. 'Gryffindor the Great', they would call her. Gabriel giggled at her own foolishness. She did a bad imitation of a backsweep slash and saw her reflection in the mirror.

She could dream, couldn't she? She slung the shield over her back, twirled the sword, and went to explore the rest of the armory.

# # #

Hayley's wing of the castle had almost literally, nothing in it. She had passed by three empty rooms, a portrait gallery full of half-done pictures and empty expanses of halls with nothing in them except for torches stationed on the walls. Hayley sighed. She knew that she should be grateful that she hadn't encountered the flesh-eating lion room, but this was almost worse.

Thinking absentmindedly, she didn't notice where she was walking until she felt something tickle the top of her scalp. She almost shrieked out, but bit on her lip and ran into a corner, heeding the saying: 'Before you turn around, you'll be six feet underground'.

Finally, when she was sure that it wasn't something trying to kill her, she turned around. It was only a knotted rope hanging from the ceiling. Feeling very stupid, she stood under it and looked up. There was a box-shaped outline on the ceiling. Curious, she gave the rope a tug.

Part of the ceiling shuddered back into a groove, and a rope ladder, made out of magic descended from it. Hayley climbed up it.

It led to a huge attic. Make that a huge empty attic. Hayley thought that she would scream with frustration.

"Isn't there _anything_ in this castle worth looking at?!" she screamed to nobody. The shout echoed throughout the castle. Hayley blushed at her own outburst, and chastised herself, saying that she should keep a better leash on her temper. 

Sighing, she looked around the attic dejectedly, and something caught her eye. In the farthest corner of the room was a shadowy object. She scampered to her feet, and started to walk over to it, careful not to put her foot in between any of the beams. 

It was a giant trunk. Looking at it, Hayley began to breathe faster, and her heartrate picked up. Maybe it was a book of spells, telling her how to get out of here. Or maybe it was a potion, which would transport her and her three friends somewhere. Or maybe it was the instructions on how this 'storybook dimension' was created, and they could reverse it somehow, so the dimension would cave in on itself. Maybe...Maybe....

It was locked.

Wanting to scream in frustration again, Hayley stood up and kicked at the lock, shaking the entire trunk, and the sound of her foot connecting with the metal, and the metal knocking back against the wood echoing about a thousand times. In anger, she kicked it again.

_Snap!_

The old lock snapped in two, and the bottom half fell to the ground with a clatter. In awe, Hayley stooped and picked up the broken lock. It was rusted clean through, and Hayley's force on it must have finally overpowered it, and it had broke.

Not exactly mourning over the forsaken lock, Hayley flung the top up. When the cloud of dust had settled, Hayley peered into its contents.

It was practically empty. The insides were lined with silk that had thinned and worn from age. The entire thing was coated with a thin layer of dust, and it made her sneeze. All that was inside was a large bag, and folds of fabric. Hayley took both out.

Looking into the bag, Hayley found something very odd. Spools of thread. But it was no ordinary thread. It shimmered with vibrant colors, so vibrant that it made Hayley's eyes hurt just to look at it. White power emitted from it. The bright, radiant pinks, blues, reds and yellows were strange compared to the dark, drab colors of the castle. Inside was also two smaller pouches, one holding needles, and the other holding a finely engraved, elaborate pair of silver scissors. Putting all of this back, Hayley unfolded the white cloth.

It was a huge, intricate tapestry. The stitches were almost microscopic-looking, and they were perfectly straight and the same size. The border was finished, and it was a harmonious picture of grapevines, ribbons, and ivy, with tiny, perfect doves embroidered so they would look like they were weaving the ribbons throughout the ivy. Every now and then, there would be a beautiful flower erupting from one of the ivy vines, or a bunch of juicy-looking purple grapes from the grapevines. Hayley ran her fingers over it in awe. That alone would have taken her a lifetime to finish.

But, in the center of the border was something even more curious. It was a picture of Dark beings fighting Light beings; the typical fight between good and evil. But it was only half finished.

Although for the fact that Hayley Hufflepuff was no seamstress, nor was she very competitive in team things, she did love a challenge. To see the tapestry half-done seemed a terrible waste and a crime. Her fingers itched to pick up the needle herself, and try it.

And why not? It wasn't like anybody had been using it, or working on it recently. It had probably been there for centuries. 

Looking around, she refolded the tapestry and shouldered the bag. And with that, Hayley Hufflepuff looked for a place to sit and freshen up on her embroidery skills.

# # #

Sarah walked around the castle sleepily. She wasn't looking for anything, and she didn't really care if she found anything. Personally, she would have been perfectly content to just walk around aimlessly. It was nice to be alone for a while. She had been walking for about five minutes when the smell of paper, ink and dust filled her nostrils: the smell of a library.

Squealing with delight, Sarah tore into the room to her right. It was indeed, a very big library, jam-packed with books. Sarah looked around joyously for a few moments, before a very thick book that lay open on a table attracted her attention. Sarah walked up it it, and peered down her nose at the words.

__

I never claimed to be a king

I never claimed to be a monarch

I never claimed to be a ruler

I never claimed to be a righteous heart.

I never wanted to be a king

I never wanted to own lands and pride

I never wanted to rule the people

I never wanted to make rules for them to abide.

I never thought to be a king

I never thought to be prepared

I never thought it would come to this

I never thought anyone cared.

I don't want to be a king

I don't want to deal with horrors of the land, air and sea

I don't want the problems

Simply because I never claimed to be.

Sarah blinked at the short poem. Grabbing the book, she flipped to the cover page of the large, leather-bound book.

__

The Ballad of the Underworld.

Sarah scrunched up her nose in thought. Didn't Tom Riddle say something about this book being the setting for the Castle Sapius? Maybe if she read it, she might understand things better. 

Looking around, Sarah Slytherin found a comfortable niche where she could read her large, newfound book. Read she did.

# # #

Finally, when all of the clocks of the castle clanged seven o'clock. That meant it was dinnertime. The foursome hid their objects, and entered the dining room.

They didn't know why, but they all thought it for the best not to tell Tom Riddle about their finds. Robert shot a side glance at Chenelle, and she returned it with a look of terror, obviously telling Robert that she would prefer to keep their meeting in the fireplace a secret. 

Hayley sucked at her right finger. She had spent the rest of the day trying to sew the rest of the design on her tapestry. It was slow, tedious work, but Hayley felt this strange compulsion to finish it. She hadn't sewn in a while, not since she had left her mansion in Ireland, so she was quite out of practice. Her entire body ached with the effort of sitting still, her eyes felt strained out by the efforts of staring at little stitches, and the needle had pricked her fingers so many times that they were bleeding. Cursing softly, Hayley wrapped her fingers in a napkin and added pressure so she could stop the bleeding.

Gabriel's muscles were burning like anything from hefting the saber and the shield for long hours in the armory, and she now felt overly lightheaded from not having them on. Gritting her teeth, she painfully brought her fork to her lips. She had never remembered when eating had been so hard. But her body still itched to pick up the armor again, despite the pain. Gabriel couldn't figure out for the life of her why.

Sarah had a very bad headache from straining to read the tiny print in The Ballad of the Underworld, and she still hadn't gotten very far. Avid reader though she was, the text of the book was done in rhymes and sonnets, and that made for difficult reading. What made it even worse was that the words were in Old English, and Sarah had trouble translating some of it. She rubbed at her swollen eyes miserably.

Tom Riddle looked at all of his students suspiciously. Something was up with them, though he couldn't figure out what. He had even gone so far to try to See into their minds with Dark Divination, but something odd was happening. He was encountering some kind of White barrier that deflected the Dark magic that he was sending out. Very peculiar. The only way that one could do that was if one was expert at White magic (which was even harder to learn then Dark magic) or if some supernatural force had Chosen the children and decided to protect them. Since Tom was quite positive that they didn't know much (if any) White magic, that only left one other other option. Tom Riddle shuddered a bit. Who would think to do that? The only other kind of magic like that he had encountered was one of a certain Harry Potter, but that was only because his mother had died to save him. Nobody had died for these four.

Thinking their own separate thoughts, the five ate their supper in silence.

# # #

A bright white flash of light awoke Robert from a deep slumber. At first he had thought it was nothing, but when it occurred again, he sat up in bed. He heard a muffled shriek from Hayley's room, the shuffling sound of someone sitting up in Gabriel's room, and a loud thud and some colorful language from Sarah's room, as if she had fallen out of bed. Robert eased out of bed and went out into the hall, staggering into a black silk bathrobe on the way. The other three girls appeared also, looking very sleep-deprived and bedraggled as they stumbled out of their rooms.

"What the hell was that?!" asked Sarah indignantly, putting her hand on her hip.

"I don't have any idea at all..." Robert began, but Hayley cut him off.

"Look!!" she cried and pointed down the hallway.

It was a bright, glowing speck of some sort, flitting around the hall, like some sort of deranged, oversized firefly. It came closer, and then flew a little ways away again, in a taunting fashion.

"I think it wants us to follow it," Gabriel said, stepping closer. Sarah snorted.

"No joke, Jack. Got any more intelligent observations to make, Dr. Stupid?" she asked, with rather a swagger tilt to her voice. Gabriel rolled her eyes. She knew better than to take Sarah seriously at this hour. But they all followed the flying white speck.

It raced down hallways, up stairwells, and through doors tapestries or pictures concealed that. As they ran father, the walls got dustier and dustier, and Robert could tell that this was a place where nobody had traveled in a long time.

Finally, after the flying...flying _thing _led them around for nearly a half hour, when they came to a hallway that had dust on the walls nearly an inch thick. It was a slim corridor, so slim that they almost had to walk Indian file. Oddly, there was a torch on the wall, throwing dusty light over the walls. Hayley looked at it strangely. Why was there a torch here, if nobody had been here in ages, so it seemed. All eyes were on the flying dot as it landed on a tile, and dissipated into nothing, leaving a slight shimmer on the square, dust-covered tile. Gabriel walked up to it, and gingerly pushed it.

The tile pushed into the wall, and the dead end in front of them opened into a small room.

The room was not much bigger than a standard size bathroom, and there was a dust-covered chair and a table in the center of it. There was an inkwell and a flattened quill lying on the table, looking like it had been used and abandoned quickly. There was a white candle on the table, burning with the normal, friendly red flame. Hayley pursed her lips. Why was the candle lit? On the table, there was a puddle of dried ink, and a folded piece of parchment. Sarah picked it up and was about to unfold it, when there was a shriek from Robert. He pointed to the wall behind him.

There were words crookedly carved into the tile, as if the person who had been chiseling them was in a great hurry when he or she was carving. Robert quickly took off his bathrobe and buffed away the dust. The foursome read the writing.

__

They think that I am dead

But they know naught at all

Up - as is

To the four inside this hallowed room I call

There is beauty in the horror

Hope within the sorrow

Up - as is

The future may be bright tomorrow

Four days ride from home

The sun strikes true yonder

Up - as is

A thought for you to ponder

Four of you have entered

But five of you will leave

Up - as is

With your power, we may believe

Heart strengthens the soul

Blood strengthens the spell

Up - as is

Then, I will return as well.

-King Archibald the III

The foursome said nothing as they inspected the etchings. What did this mean? Up - as is? What the heck was that? What will return? Their heads were buzzing with questions that had no answers. Finally, Sarah opened the ancient parchment, and the foursome looked at the words.

__

Yongher Meridian

What was that?! The foursome looked at each other with awe and fear. Finally, Sarah snorted and put the piece of parchment in her pocket.

"Looks like another job for the Boxcar Children," she scoffed.

Authors Note: Sorry that that took so long. It was just that I had to call upon my *great* poetic talent to do this chapter. There will only be one, maybe two more chapters, and then this will be over with! ::Assorted cheers and boos:: Well, I don't know whether to be happy or sad about that. Up - as is? Well, I know what it is (well, obviously), but do you? If you do, don't post it up in the review columns, please. I want people to be able to figure this out themselves. Just for a fling, how many people here have read Redwall? That's where I got the idea for the 'Up - as is' from. Be sweet and Review! (As always, no flames if you don't like!)

~Moxie ^_^ 

Disclaimer: Everything here that is in the Harry Potter series belongs to J.K. Everything that isn't mentioned in the Harry Potter series belongs to me. Nuff' said. ~_^


	8. Tainted Tea and Ridiculous Riddles

Nobody paid any attention to Sarah's sarcastic remark. They were still transfixed by the riddle on the wall. 

"What do you think it means?" whispered Gabriel, still looking at the hastily engraved letters. Robert shook his head.

"I have no idea," he said flatly. To everybody's surprise, Hayley giggled a little bit.

"Come on, Robert," she said, walking up to the poem. "I thought logic was your specialty. All you have to do is break it down," she finished simply. Sarah looked at her.

"What do you mean?" she asked. Hayley wiped away a little more dust from the letters and squinted at them, yawning.

"You just have to take it stanza by stanza. 'They think that I am dead, but they know naught at all'. Well, 'naught' means nothing, right? I guess that that means that whoever thinks that this King Archibald is dead, knows nothing at all. He must still be alive somewhere," she said. Sarah wrinkled up her nose.

"But, I read some of the book where this castle takes place, and it says that the King is dead..." she trailed off, but then a light illuminated in her gray eyes, as if she had just thought of something.

"But the book was never finished! Zavier the Zany died in his cell before the book was completed, and nobody finished it. I guess that that means that there is a slim chance that the king may still be alive," she finished. Robert caught onto Hayley's lead and diced it a little more.

"Well, I don't know what this 'Up - as is' is, but he's calling for the four inside the hallowed walls, and since there are four of us in here, he might be meaning us," he said thoughtfully. Gabriel tried her hand at this poem.

"I guess the next stanza about 'Hope within the sorrow' means that there is still hope, and evil can still be vanquished, or along the lines of that. But then there's that 'Up - as is' again." 

"'Four days ride from home?'" Sarah asked. "'The sun strikes true yonder?' Does that mean that there is a place that the sun shines here? No way. The entire place is that pinky-purple thing," she said. The other four shrugged.

"'Four of us have entered, but five of us will leave?'" Hayley said thoughtfully. "Well, four of us have entered this dimension, and I guess that that means that somebody else will be leaving it with us, and the person will help us defeat the evil. But what in the name of Hades is 'Up - as is'?" she asked, scowling at the etching in the wall.

"That 'Soul strengthens the heart' might just be comparisons, but 'I will return as well'? Does that mean that if we kill the evil here that the Good King will come back?" asked Robert hopefully. Sarah shrugged and sighed.

"I have the nastiest feeling that 'Up -as is' has something big to do with this, but I have no idea what. But we're not leaving until we find it out," she said stubbornly.

"Right," they all agreed.

# # #

A half-hour later, all four were nearly asleep, and they were no closer than ever before to figuring out what 'Up -as is' was. Robert actually had fallen asleep, and fell against a dusty wall. He hit the floor and woke up briefly, enough to hear a shriek from Gabriel. He shot awake at once.

"Look behind you!" Gabriel yelled, pointing behind him. Robert was afraid to turn around; for fear that he would see a gigantic monster or something of the like. But he did, and he found something quite odd.

It was a tiled wall, and each tile had a letter on it. Robert grabbed his black robe again and buffed away the dust. The tiles were about one inch by one inch, and each had a letter engraved in it. He nervously reached out and touched an 'R' that was above his head. 

The tile crumbled, and a blast of fire sprang out, making them all scream and duck for cover. When they did so, there was a huge scorch mark on the other side of the room. Gabriel was sweating, and breathing heavily when she next spoke.

"I suppose that we won't be trying that again, hmm?" she asked. But Hayley put a finger to her lips and studied it intently.

"I bet that it does something important, though. It's another riddle," she said thoughtfully. Sarah snorted.

"I'm in no mood for more riddles!" she cried. Robert rubbed his head. He was in no mood for riddles either, but they had to figure it out, lest they never go home.

He was drifting off into sleep, when a vision flashed in front of Robert's eyes. It was one of when he was younger, doing anagrams with his kindergarten teacher. Now, granted, they were easy anagrams, like 'rearrange the word 'ta' to find a word', but they were anagrams nevertheless. He was about to go to sleep again, when he jolted awake.

"That's it!" he cried, springing to his feet and walking over to the etching in the wall. The three girls looked at him as if he had gone bonkers.

"What's it?" Sarah asked sleepily. Robert sighed impatiently.

"It's so obvious! 'Up - as is' has to be an anagram! It has to be!" he cried, sounding quite insane. Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

"An ana-what?" she asked. Robert groaned.

"Don't you guys know anything?! An anagram is when you take words and rearrange them to make other words. If you take the letters in Up - as is, and rearrange them, we should get other words, that we punch into the wall over there, and well, one less riddle!" he cried, sounding rather deranged. Hayley raised an eyebrow.

"You know, that sounds so stupid that it just might work. But what does 'Up - as is' make?" she asked. Even Robert couldn't answer that one.

Another half an hour passed. They were about to fall asleep again, when Gabriel screamed in delight.

"I've got it! I've got it!" she squealed. "'Up - as is' has two s's, an a, a 'u', and a 'p' in it right?! Well, so does Sapius! It's Sapius!" she said ecstatically. The other three looked at each other for another moment, and then there was a mad dash for the tile/keyboard.

Sarah steeled herself and pressed in an 's'. After she did so, she ducked quickly, in case Gabriel had been wrong. But Gabriel's prediction had been correct. Instead of crumbling, the letter started to glow a vibrant gold, and shimmered against the overall gloom of the room.

Quickly, the other letters were punched in. Suddenly, all of the false letters dissipated into the wall, and all that was left was the glowing outline of 'Sapius'. Then the wall started to crumble. Cracks appeared in the wall, and the entire thing fell to the ground. There was another room in here, this one even smaller then the one before it. In it was another plaque, but this one was intricately carved into a frame, not hastily scribbled into a wall. It read:

__

That was only puzzle number one, proud as you may be,

but to leave this place, you must brave these trials three.

Firstly, learn the Dark, and learn it well,

for the magic may spare your soul from a variable hell.

So learn the Darkness, though you might,

but in the dark, study the Light.

Obey your Master's every will,

but keep your studies success secret still.

Second, strong as you are in number four,

to defeat the Dark, you need one more.

This ally is strong, faithful and tough,

the beacon in the night; the diamond in the rough.

Look for this ally in unexpected places,

you may be surprised by familiar faces.

Lastly, travel by night through the desolate moor,

for it is there you will find the dimension's door.

The map was found by the Innocent,

hours on its completion have already been spent.

For in the dark and the gloom,

the sun always has its room.

This embroidered map will lead you there,

pick your path and lead it, but take care.

Your blood will not only activate the spell,

but will give you added strength as well.

Innocent, teach them the simplicity of being a group, not a part

show them that true learning comes not from the brain, but the heart.

Sage, the wise man that you are,

spread your acquired knowledge near and far.

Wild Woman, you hold with your sword and shield a key,

use them wisely, don't let them be.

Queen of Not Doing, your tongue burns like hot coal,

but if we look past this, we see a human being with a heart and soul.

Through all of your troubles, stay brave and strong,

choose the path of Light and you can never go wrong.

Just one more thing that I know is true;

watch out, my friends, for They are watching you.

The four stared, flabbergasted at the very long rhyme, until Sarah stomped her foot on the ground angrily.

"Why can't they just tell us what to do instead of confusing it all up with these rhymes?!" she remarked irately. "It would be so much easier!" Gabriel looked at her shrewdly.

"Because if life was easy, it would be boring," she said. Sarah glared at her. Robert paid them no heed and was still staring at the engraving.

"I wonder how they knew our Tarot spread," he mused. Hayley sighed.

"Well, obviously, since this 'story' hasn't been completed, I guess the characters are still running rampant, and now we're caught in the middle of it. Lucky us," she said irritably, sounding not unlike Sarah. Sarah sighed.

"I guess that that's not such a bad thing. We have to write our own ending, in a way," she said, eyes lighting up in her head. She had always wanted to be a writer, and being a character in a story was actually better than writing her own one, because she got to be a part of it. Gabriel squinted, forcing her drooping eyelids to stay up.

"Hayley, you're the Innocent, right? What did you find? It says that you've already found something, and it's a map," she said, looking at Hayley. Hayley looked at the poem again. She had found a map? The only thing that she had found was a tapestry, and that wasn't a map.

"Err, well, I found a half-done tapestry earlier today, but I don't think it is a map.." she started, but Robert cut her off..

"We didn't think that 'Up - as is' was anything, either, but it was. Are you sure that there is nothing hidden in it that you may have missed?" he asked.

"Well, no," she admitted ruefully. "I never really looked at it that closely. I found it up in an attic, in a locked trunk. I spent the rest of today trying to finish it," she said, showing the other three her pricked hands.

A ray of light streaked across the dusty floor from a small hole in the rotted wall. Sarah ran up to the hole and pressed her eye to it. Dawn was breaking, or at least the pink-purple sky was slowly lightning, dusting the bare wasteland outside with cobwebby patterns of pale light. Sarah blanched.

"Holy Park rangers, man! It's daybreak, and we'd better skedaddle before Tommy wakes up!" she cried.

There was much a scattering of dust and muck as the four made for the exit of the small room like mice scurrying from a great wildcat.

When the foursome made for their beds, the tiny room gave something of a stony sigh as the entrance to it shuddered closed.

# # #

The demeanor of Hogwarts, though humming with gossip and running smoothly as normal, was rather downcast. The four 'mascot' students were gone, and the school was missing their presence dearly. Nobody seemed much in the mood for anything any more, and everything seemed to be going on lethargically. Quidditch didn't seem as competitive, and the Slytherin and Gryffindor houses were holding tryouts again, to find replacements for Gabriel and Sarah. 

The closest friends of the missing four were the ones that were hit the hardest. Alanya, Essex, Alex and Rosemary slunk about the place as if their mothers had died three times over.

"Tryouts are today," Alanya muttered to Lavender Brown, watching a hopeful-faced Seamus trot down the hall with a broom. He was hoping that since Gabriel was gone, he might have a shot at being replacement Keeper until she came back. That is, if she came back. Lavender nodded.

"You gonna try out?" asked Lavender. "Seamus needs some competition, and I hear that Dean Thomas is trying out too, and he's a soccer wizard, but can't fly for beans. I've heard that you're pretty good on a broom yourself, Alanya."

"I don't feel like it."

"You're still moping on about Gabriel, aren't you? Well, I don't think that holding a vigil over her absence is going to help her much."

"I'm not moping! And besides the fact, I don't have a broom with me."

"Borrow Gabriel's."

"WHAT?! Are you nuts? It's not mine! And anyway, I'm not stealing from my best friend!"

"You won't be stealing. She's not gonna be usin' it any time soon. Go on, Gabriel would rather you take her place than Seamus," Lavender argued back, steering Alanya in the direction of the broom shack, where Gabriel's broom was kept.

The broom was actually property of the school's, but Gabriel had borrowed Harry Potter's broom kit, and polished, clipped loose tail-straws, preformed numerous charms to keep it from going haywire on her. She filled in all of the chips and cracks, until she came out with a broom that was nearly good as new. Alanya hefted in her right hand, turning it over. It was a beautiful broom, once it had been cleaned up a bit, Alanya thought idly. She sighed.

"Gabriel? Wherever you are, I hope you won't mutilate me for this when you come back home," Alanya whispered, eyes beginning to tear in spite of herself. But she shook it off.

Swinging the broom over one shoulder, Alanya headed towards the Quidditch field. She heard a voice behind her that nearly made her fall over.

--_Yes, you can use the broom, but if anything happens to it, I'll kill you!_-- it said. 

Alanya whipped around, breathing increasing and heartrate flying at the speed of sound. She had just heard Gabriel! But that wasn't possible. Gabriel was - well, somewhere else. Peeking back into the broomshed, she made sure that nobody was playing a trick on her, and trying to scare her.

But nobody was in there but the brooms, and brooms tell no tales.

# # #

"Yes, you can use the broom, but it anything happens, I'll kill you!" mumbled Gabriel in a half-asleep daze. Upon the returning to their rooms, the foursome had bid each other in hasty good nights. They also quick promises to keep all discoveries about the secret room to Tom Riddle or Chenelle, they stole into their rooms to hopefully catch a few winks of sleep before 'Mr. Riddle' came in to wake them all up for breakfast. But Gabriel Gryffindor was already up.

Kicking off the navy blue bedspread, she staggered to her closet, and selected one of the identical black frocks that were neatly hung in the dark space. Pulling it over her head, she noticed with dissatisfaction that the dress had terrible static cling to it. A petticoat from a dresser drawer quickly solved the problem. Feeling overdressed and overly girlish, Gabriel sat back down on the bedspread, trying to think. Something had happened last night, something important, but Gabriel couldn't think of it.

"Oh yes," she said aloud, while fiddling with her silver binding-pendant. "The rhymes, the riddles, and the secrets. I'm so enthralled," she snarled to nobody. Groaning, she put a hand to her head. She had a terrible migraine, and wanted to be home more than anything now. 

"Whining about it isn't helping anything," she reprimanded herself angrily. "Come on now, Gabriel, you've got a riddle to unravel."

And with that, Gabriel went out to find the others.

# # # 

Tom Riddle regarded his Hufflepuff student with suspicion. For three hours, he had worked specifically with her on a moving spell, but she hadn't been able to do anything with it. When he had started with the Dark Arts, he knew half the spells there were by heart in his first week. Granted, it had only been about a month, but his pupils hadn't been able to master even the simplest spells that there were. 

In reality, Hayley was using some of the Dark magic that she had learned to bring sweat up around her face, and to make the apples of her cheeks red. Hayley and her friends had decided to take the verse in the rhyme to heart:

__

'Obey your Master's every will

but keep your studies secret still' 

Tom Riddle had been right about getting used to the side effects of taming the Darkness. Now when Hayley called upon it, she only felt slightly nauseated for a couple of seconds before returning back to normal. But they never let Tom Riddle upon this, fearing for some strange reason that something bad would happen if he knew that they were apt at the Dark Arts.

The former Voldemort studied the blank faces of his students intently. They showed no emotion towards anything whatsoever, just totally stupefied looks. He tried once again to reach into their minds with Dark Divination, only to find that the White barrier again repelled him. Tom scowled. Something was up, but it enraged him totally that he couldn't find out what it was.

Robert just stood there placidly, trying to keep the look of amusement off of his face. Tom was angry at something that he knew, and it was probably because he had been teaching him and the girls for about a month now, and they had shown no signs of improvement. Robert looked around at the girls, and Sarah gave him the tiniest half-wink before resuming her dumb expression. He then sighed. He hoped that it wouldn't be too much longer before Tom Riddle lost all of his patience and let them off the hook for the day, as he was getting tired of standing here. 

"All right, that's it, Miss Hufflepuff, I've seen enough of your incompetence today. You may go," he said, fighting to hold his stupefied rage at the foursome's inability to learn the Arts. There was a flash of purple, and he was gone.

They all stood there for a moment, silent, waiting to see if he would come back. He didn't, and there was only thin air where Tom just stood.

"The Nest?" muttered Gabriel out of the corner of her mouth. Sarah gave a stout nod, running her fingers through her coarse hair.

"The Nest," she repeated in agreement. Robert and Hayley mumbled their agreement. Abruptly, the foursome turned and ran helter-skelter down the hall.

'The Nest' was the attic where Hayley had found the tapestry at two weeks before. In the corner of the room, the floor had a slightly collapsed dent in it, resembling a bowl. When the foursome noticed this, they smuggled up pillows, blankets and the like, to make it padded. It was now indeed, a very squashy, comfortable nest, where they freshened up on their Dark Arts skills, and learned Light Magic. Sarah produced a clear globe that she had smuggled away from her room out of the folds of her dress.

"Elestrapa," she muttered to it. A bright purple flame started in the middle of it, and Sarah shook it a bit to coax the flame on. It did, and soon there was a nice roaring fire going inside the ball. She set it in the middle of the 'Nest' and it illuminated the attic eerily.

Robert took out a thick book on Light Magic, while Gabriel skimmed a volume on the Dark Arts. Hayley worked on her needlepoint, which the foursome still hadn't figured out the 'map' part of it yet, and Sarah leafed through a glossary on magic in general. There was silence, until Gabriel looked up and saw what Sarah was reading.

"What'cha doing, Sarah?" she asked, reclining comfortably in her spot. Sarah looked up briefly before turning back to her book.

"I'm trying to look up Yongher Meridian, you know, the words that were written onto that scrap of paper I found in that dusty room? Well, I can't find it anywhere!" she cried, shutting her book with a slight thump. Hayley looked up, uncharacteristically angry and red-faced. She slammed the tapestry onto the ground, tears of frustration starting in her eyes.

"I can't finish it! Every time I make a stitch, it seems to sink into the material!" They all looked at her. It was very unlike Hayley to lose her temper like that, they were for a moment, quite startled. Robert snapped his brows together.

"Let me have a look at it, Hayley," he said, beckoning with his hand. Hayley handed the wad of material over, with the golden thread on top of it. For a moment, he studied the large blank space intently, and then he picked up the needle.

With a slight swish of the sharp needle, he made a huge stitch, that reached from one side of the tapestry's blank spot to the other. Hayley squealed slightly.

"What did you do?" she asked indignantly. She was about to lunge for it back, but Robert gave her a very serious stare and kept on looking at the large stitch he just made. Slowly, but surely, the thread began to sink into the tapestry until it was gone. They all stared at it for a moment, before Hayley cleared her throat and spoke.

"Well. I guess that would explain why I wasn't able to finish the confounded thing, hm?" she asked faintly. Robert grinned at her.

"I guess it would." Gabriel bit the inside of her lip and touched the smooth surface of the unstitched fabric. The part where the stitches started looped and curved about.

"You know," she mused, running her hand over the fine stitches, "these kind of look like the turrets to a castle...." she began, and then she gasped.

"They are turrets! Look! And the flags that the light beings are carrying are the flags on the turrets!" Gabriel cried. The other three scampered to her side of the Nest, trying to get a good look at it.

It was a castle. A white silhouette of one, that was shaped from where the border jutted in, and the places where the stitched stopped and the white void started. The beings that were stitched in silver held small battle flags that represented the flags on the top of the turrets. But apart from the castle, the rest seemed just to be a clash of black and silver thread, and they couldn't make any sense of it. 

Robert sighed and ran his finger along one of the smooth ribbons that was wound within the border. He started when he realized that the ribbon wasn't smooth, but had odd little bumps running along it. He squinted at it, and nearly squealed with surprise.

Embroidered into the pink ribbon was letters of the same color. Robert cocked his head to the side, and ran his finger along the satin again, more purposefully this time. While the girls stared at each other in wondering bewilderment, Robert started to mumble words.

__

To find the spot where the sun shines true,

look for the raging river of blue. 

Robert looked onto the tapestry again. "What raging river of blue?" he asked. Sarah looked at the others nonchalantly.

"You think this is it? I found this earlier," she said pointing to a blue thread that started from the castle.

It was indeed a river, or in what the tapestry depicted, it looked like a river. The great azure snake weaved in and around the beings, twined through the sparse trees that were sewn in, and came to an abrupt halt at a dead Light being. It was a sight that was depicted as horribly beautiful, the silver being had a black sword impaled into its stomach, and it was drenched in a pool of silvery-yellowish blood. Hayley squinted at the figure. Was that more writing in the threads?

__

Where the Being of Light's blood hits the ground,

the sun is always there to be found.

Gabriel swallowed hard. "I think....I think we've found our sunny spot, mates," she said quietly.

# # #

"Roots, Potter."

"Get them yourself, Malfoy!"

"Hey! It's not _my_ fault that Snape put us as potion partners, Scarface! You think that _I_ wanted this to happen?! Roots, Potter!"

Harry grudgingly picked up a Worthag root and started hacking at it was such ferocity that he got it lodged in the table several times. When he had minced them to his liking, he pushed the chopping board over to Malfoy, who flung them into the sizzling potion. 

The potion blurbled and bubbled more furiously as it turned a disgusting sort of booger green. Draco put a stick of wood on the fire under the cauldron and checked on the potion again, making sure it was simmering at the right rate. He then slammed the top on the pewter-

Stained-black cauldron with such a clatter that many people looked up to see what had caused the disturbance. Malfoy sneered at the people who looked up, and they quickly returned to their own potions.

Draco sat down with a plop next to Harry on the bench. They glared hatefully at each other for a moment before Harry broke the gaze and looked off into space. Draco turned away from Harry and slumped his hand against a white fist. At first he seethed at the fact that Snape actually made him sit with Potter, but then his thoughts turned to the events of the last couple of weeks.

His sallow cheeks burned red at the very thought of it. He hated being in the debt of other people, much less in debt to a girl. Not that he was incredibly biased against the thought of girls saving him...but it was degrading nevertheless. Plus, not only were he in debt to one girl, but to three of them, and a goody-two shoe boy. Draco groaned and let his head fall onto the table. What was worse, was the fact that....Well, he'd prefer not to think of the other fact, save him from going total tomato-face in front of Potter. Never in front of Potter.

Harry, on the other hand, who was twirling his finger in a small pile of dust idly, was thinking about Quidditch. They had had Quidditch tryouts for the position of Goalkeeper, and although that Harry wouldn't admit it aloud in front of anybody, he thought that the attempts at the position were pretty pitiful. Seamus was good on a broom, but he couldn't catch a ball to save his hide, Dean could catch pretty well from his years of being a soccer goalkeeper, but he couldn't maneuver around on a broom very well. Alanya was average at about everything, but she was a Chaser on her Quidditch team at home...and it showed, as her Goalkeeping skills were not exactly up to par. Harry sighed and shot a side look at Malfoy, and was rewarded by seeing the back of his silver-blonde head. He sighed. If they didn't come up with a good Quidditch Keeper, then the Gryffindors, and himself included, would make total fools of themselves in front of the Slytherins and Malfoy. He couldn't let that happen. Never in front of Malfoy.

The smell of burning substance reached Harry's nostrils. He came crashing back down to Earth, and shot a glance in the direction of the potion. The top of it was dancing with heat pressure, and the potion was bubbling ferociously, sending little flecks of green liquid all over the place, to spatter on the walls and floor. Harry was on his feet at once, and he ran over to the cauldron and flung off the top, looking frantically for the stirrer. Malfoy was twirling it between his long fingers.

"Ladle, Malfoy," Harry ordered. Draco looked up at him, a malicious glint in his eyes.

"Get it yourself, Potter," he said in a high-pitched, imitating voice.

"Malfoy.....!" Harry growled as Draco chortled wickedly.

# # #

It was dinnertime, and Tom Riddle rapped his fork against his plate incessantly. Being a spirit of his own creation, he didn't need to eat nor drink, he just did it so he would seem more 'normal' to his pupils. But the problem was that his pupils didn't seem to be normal at all. They were all eating in innocent silence, and it seemed to take all restraint for him to keep from yelling pent up wrath at them, though he didn't really get what he was so angry at.

Finally, Sarah broke the silence. "Pray tell us, Master Tom," she said, wiping her lips with a napkin, "would you happen to know what Yongher Meridian is?"

Tom dropped his fork onto the table. "And pray tell me," he said, voice shaking slightly, "how do you know of Yongher Meridian?"

Sarah shrugged. "I was reading and I came upon it in a book," she replied smoothly.

Hayley stared aghast at how Sarah could lie so seamlessly, without breaking a sweat. If it had been Hayley that was talking, she would have been stuttering all over the place by now, and trying to think of an excuse. Well, they didn't call Slytherins distrustful for no reason, she supposed mirthlessly.

"It's a Light transporting spell," Tom replied, choosing his words carefully. "I don't really know how to use it. Why do you want to know?" 

"I was just interested in the theory, that's all. No need to get so testy with me," she said innocently. Tom eyed them suspiciously.

"In the theory, eh? Well, you should be more interested in the theory of tomorrow's lesson, then of complicated Light spells."

Gabriel perked up. "What will we be learning tomorrow, Sir?" she asked. Ton drummed his fingers on the table noisily.

"Lightning again. Since none of you dunderheads seem to be getting it," he snarled. Robert sighed, and pushed a wedge of fish around on his plate. He was so tired of these easy spells. His brain ached for a challenge, but he couldn't show Tom that he knew these simple spells by heart. He missed Hogwarts, he missed the normal spells, he missed his wand, and he missed everything that was home. And everything depended upon the charade of Robert Ravenclaw playing the idiot. He groaned and reached for his cup of water. If he could hold out for a little longer, he would be okay. Everything would be okay. 

Tom Riddle saw the flash of monotony and impatience flash across Robert's face. Something fishy was going on, and by the Darkness, he was going to find it out. Tom stood up hastily, knocking his chair over backwards. His four students looked at him morosely, and he scanned their faces one last time.

"You have the evening to yourselves," he said quickly, and dissipated in the flash of purple light. Hayley sighed.

"I wish that I knew where he was going when he did that," she said ruefully. 

# # #

When Tom Riddle went when he appearated like that was the one place where he could calm his frazzled nerves; his wing of the castle.

A very peculiar door shrouded the entrance to his wing of the castle. There was a stone slab in the wall, with a statue beside it. Lifting up the statue, under it was a black square. Placing his hand on the square, there was a flash of green light, and the stone disappeared into nothing.

If one could find the entrance to Tom Riddle's secret lair, they might be expecting regal marble halls, plush carpets and the lot, but it was actually just a big cavernous underground hall. Complete with dripping stalactites, and two purple torches, crackling eerily, sending purple shadows bouncing off the walls, that leaded into darkness. Tom plucked one of the tiles off the wall, and started to walk down that long hallway.

Tom really didn't think that much during the walk down the corridor, he always thought that silence in the area was best received by silence in the mind as well. Finally, the cave led to a little off room on one of the sides. Walking into the center of the domed hollow, he placed the torch in a holder. The feeble light did little to illuminate the huge room.

"Alablaster," Tom remarked offhandedly. The purple flame flickered and grew long and tall, until it touched the ceiling of the thirty-foot room, and lit it up completely.

The room had a rotting wooden counter running around it, and there were numerous things thrown haphazardly upon it. There were jars of beetle's eyes, unicorn hairs and horns, Flaxweed, and all of the normal wizarding things, but there were also more gruesome things stockpiled there as well. These included a large jar of human eyeballs, tongue of a dragon, a small vial of unicorn blood, and piles of Dark spells.

Tom righteously ignored this, and walked over to a shelf in the wall, which glowed behind a soiled piece of tapestry.

He pulled back the tapestry, and looked at what was inside. There were four tall, bell-shaped glasses, over the wands of the houses. Tom stared hungrily at the wands of Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. There was ancient power locked into these pieces of weather-hardened wood, he knew it. He could feel it radiating from the wands. These wands were made to be used for great purposes, like the Dark Arts, thought Tom Riddle. That much is clear. 

The problem with this, though, was that the wands seemed only to cooperate with ones of direct blood relation to the founders. And although Tom Riddle was related to Slytherin in a distant way, his blood wasn't pure enough for the wand to listen to his commands. The one it would listen to, he thought venomously, was a little smart-mouthed, ill-mannered American, that seemed totally ignorant to her potential. The mere thought of it angered Tom to no extent.

The wand of Slytherin, as if possessed for a second, wildly jumped about in the bellglass and thrashed against the glass, making a loud, echoing clang. The other wands did the same. Tom Riddle's hair stood on end. These wands had minds of their own! He had seen nothing else like it before. 

Uncharacteristically unnerved, Tom quickly let the tattered tapestry fall back over the captive wands, and walked out, shaking a bit in spite of himself.

The wand of Gryffindor thrust itself against the glass again, and the others followed, as if in agreement. The echoing bounced about the lonely walls of the cave, and then all was silent.

# # #

Meanwhile, the foursome of whom the wands belonged to was conversing up in the 'Nest'.

"Well, we've found the map" sighed Hayley. "Now all we have to find is this ally, and then we have to find the 'place where the sun always shines, or something to that extent."

Sarah sighed, and slumped down against the curved bowl of the Nest. "Didn't the poem say that it would be someone we knew? Well, who do we know?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Well, to tell you the absolute truth, I haven't seen anyone here, save you guys, Tom Riddle, and Chenelle. And I don't think that it would be Tom Riddle," she finished sensibly.

"So you think that it's Chenelle?" asked Robert. "Well, I guess it would be the only logical answer, considering that I don't think that the God of all Darkness is going to be our ally," he finished, answering his own question. 

"So, now that we have or map, supposedly our 'ally', now we need to figure out how to use Yonghar Meridian, and I think that we can go," Sarah sighed.

Hayley had been half-dozing through all of this, keeping one ear open, and nodding every once and awhile to make her comrades happy. She finally drifted off into sleep.

She was in a misty, white, nothing place. Normally, she would have been afraid, but calm and peace radiated around her, and she was quite content. There was no Tom Riddle, no Castle Sapius, no Darkness, no annoying riddles, and nothing that could bother was here. Hayley basked in the wonderment of it all, until she heard a voice, soft but grating on the human ear, speak.

_"In the name of all joy and Light,_

I call upon the spell of the Yongher Meridian,

Take me from this wretched place tonight,

and send my spirit home again," it said.

A distantly aloof part of Hayley noted lazily that the voice was female, friendly, and almost distantly familiar to her. There was a sudden touch of coldness of her head, and Hayley smiled faintly at it. The voice repeated the short rhyme again.

_"In the name of all joy and Light,_

I call upon the spell of the Yongher Meridian,

take me from this wretched place tonight,

and send my spirit home again."

A hand shook Hayley hard, and she saw the blissful misty place melt away from her eyes, and Hayley sighed with sorrowful disdain. Her soul probably would have tried to grapple onto the dream, but she didn't feel like it. It was like the feeling she got after she overate herself, and felt too full and good-natured to move an inch. So, reality (or could she count a made dimension as reality?) came crashing back to Earth, as she hazily opened one eye, to see Gabriel peering down at her.

"Are you 'right, Hayley?" she asked worriedly. "You were mumbling and turning over in your sleep! Was it a bad dream?"

Hayley was about to shake her head and say that it had been a wonderful dream, but then the meaning of the dream came back to her. Hayley turned the clammy white of a forest fungus when she remembered it.

"I need parchment and ink, quick!" she cried. Puzzled, the other three heeded her request. Hayley took the quill and parchment and quickly scribbled out the rhyme in her small, loopy writing, and handed it to Robert, who read it.

"What?" he whispered when he finished it. "You mean that you had a vision about Yongher Meridian? Do you think that this is true, Hayley?"

Hayley nodded. "I know so," she said affirmatively. Strange as it was, there was a firm belief planted into her soul that the verse, and the female voice, was telling the truth.

# # #

It had actually been a rather normal, peaceful day for Chenelle. She lived to work, and she worked to live, in short. Almost all of her fourteen years of her life she spent serving her 'Master Tom', and she didn't remember much else about her life before it. Most people her age would have pitched a huge fit if asked to do even a quarter of the work that Chenelle did, but Chenelle herself actually enjoyed the house chores that others might have labeled as tedious and boring. Chenelle found that they were relaxing, and the monotonous vigor of it all kept her from thinking too much.

Chenelle was polishing a coat of armor slowly, humming to herself a tune as she worked polish into the metal, buffing it to a slow sheen. That was when Robert came barreling up to her, shoes thumping loudly against the floor. Chenelle looked up with alarm.

"Robert? Is something wrong?" she asked him. Robert shook his head and held up a finger, signaling that he needed to catch his breath. Chenelle waited patiently until he could speak.

"Come with me for a moment, Chenelle. Leave your work where it is," he ordered her. Perplexed, she dropped the soft cloth and looked at him, about to speak. He breathlessly shook his head.

"No questions. No time for questions. Come on." Robert grabbed her hand, and hustled down some corridors. Chenelle's mouth worked, but she made no noise.

Finally, after twisting and twining about some hallways, they stopped in front of a knotted cord. Robert gave it a swift yank, and part of the ceiling gave way, and a silvery rope ladder appeared. Pushing Chenelle forwards, Robert motioned that she should climb the ladder. She scampered up it quickly, and Robert followed.

When she made it up into the attic, she could barely breathe, thanks to the thick coat of dust in the air, and her lack of breath from being marched down the hall like a prisoner. She looked around, and saw nothing at first, but then she noticed a faint purple glow in the far corner of the room. Robert started to walk over there, and Chenelle obediently followed.

She was surprised to find that Sarah, Gabriel and Hayley were there too, faces lit up by the ghostly light of a purple glow. Chenelle slid down into the sloped 'Nest', and looked about her in bewilderment.

"What-" she began, but was cut off by Sarah shaking her head.

"No time for your questions, Chenelle. We need to ask you something, and I can guarantee that it's more important to your fate than what your question could ever be," she said shortly. Chenelle closed her mouth and pushed all further thoughts out of her mind.

"We need to know. If you had the chance, would you leave Castle Sapius and your 'Master Tom', to go live in freedom?" Gabriel asked, choosing words carefully, so as not to frighten Chenelle.

Chenelle bit her lip. Many a night she had dreamed of someone taking her away from here, to have a chance to live like a normal witch, and not a bound slave to the Dark Arts. It would be wonderful.

"I would like to leave, but unfortunately, I'm bound here," she said with a sad clip to her voice. But she brushed it away immediately. "Why?" Chenelle asked suspiciously. Hayley grinned.

"We're getting outta here. We're running away. We've had omens that a fifth person was to come with us. We wanted to know if you were the one," she said.

Chenelle was stunned. "Have you flown off your rockers?" she cried. "I'm-we're all bound here! If we tried anything stupid, we'd all die!" Sarah shook her head.

"We're perfectly aware of that!" she snapped. "But we've had omens, and countless riddles that have told us to leave this place, so good can reign again. We have to trust them....I don't want to be stuck here forever, a slave to the Darkness! Do you?"

"Well, no," Chenelle admitted ruefully. "But I don't want to die, either."

Gabriel shrugged and wiped some fuzz off of her black gown. "That's the chance you're going to have to take. It's either come with us and try, or wimp out and stay here forever."

"Forever is a long time," Chenelle said softly. She remembered what her life had been so far, and what she could change it to if she went along with these four. Chenelle looked up, and four pleading faces met her own. 

"Oh all right," she whispered. Sarah broke into a huge grin.

"So," she asked, gray eyes twinkling at Robert, "when does the Eagle fly the Nest?" she asked. Robert rolled his eyes back into his head.

"Whenever the Snake slithers out," he said mindlessly. Sarah turned and winked at Gabriel.

"The Snake slithers when the Lion pounces," she said mischievously. Gabriel sighed.

"The Lion pounces when the Badger digs itself out," she replied. Hayley sighed, fiddled with her binding pendant, and looked at Chenelle.

"The Badger digs when the Dark Dove deems it to be so," she said, looking at Chenelle. Chenelle raised her eyebrows. The Dark Dove?

"The Dark Dove deems so when the Snake, Lion, Eagle, and Badger stop making terrible puns," she said slyly. The other four giggled nervously.

"Well, Dark Dove?" asked Robert. "When do you deem right?" 

Chenelle sighed.

_"The Dark Dove deems right,_

when the moon is full tonight."

# # #

Tom Riddle knew something was up that night. His students were not as chatty as normal and they seemed to be spending all of their time pouring over spellbooks, which to his knowledge were too complicated for them. Even Chenelle seemed meeker and more jumpy than usual. On further inquiry, he only got looks of innocence, and explanations that they were just curious.

"I see," he said on occasion of finding Gabriel with a book on sleeping potions and spells. "You're just curious, so you're looking over a page on the most potent sleeping spell on the book and trying to memorize it. That's a ways to go for curiosity."

Gabriel looked up and gave him an overly warm smile. "I know I won't be able to do it, but it looks interesting, and when I get deep enough into the Darkness, I will know how to put people to sleep with ease, Master Tom," she said mechanically. Tom raised an eyebrow and left.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Gabriel let loose a sigh of relief. That was too close for comfort. Shutting her book, she walked up to her closet door. Making sure to lock it behind her, she lit a candle.

"'Somul'," she said, pointing to a black candle that she had plastered on the wall. It flickered with the purple flame, and Gabriel pushed back her row of dresses.

Behind the dresses, there was a makeshift potion stand. A large earthenware bowl sat on top of a three-wicked candle, and Gabriel peered into the bowl. A clear, boiling mess met her eyes. Reaching into her pocket, she threw in some dried Kappa leaves, and watched as they disintegrated into the clear potion, and made it hiss and whistle. Gabriel smiled.

"Perfect," she whispered to herself. Putting out the candles, she gingerly grabbed the bowl with the tips of her fingers and walked into Robert's room.

Robert was pouring over a cloaking spell book, but looked up and motioned to the dresser when he saw her come in. 

On the dresser were a teapot, kettle, a small-contained fire, and a teacup. Tom liked to end his day with a cup of tea, Chenelle told them. The potion that Gabriel had made in the bowl was the most potent Dark sleeping spell that there was, and she had to spend her day sneaking herbs and skins necessary for the potion itself. Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard, since Tom thought that they were total dunces, and saw no need to keep his potion ingredients under lock and key.

Opening the teakettle, Gabriel poured the clear liquid in. It looked exactly like bubbling water. Gabriel smirked in pride at her work. Robert came up.

"Stand back," he warned her. Gabriel backed up, and Robert put a hand on the top of the teakettle, ignoring the burn that he was getting from the metal top.

"Prevaro Maliticar," he whispered, eyes beginning to tear from the hot metal. A short flash of white light, a fizzle from the clear potion, and Robert removed his hand.

"That's the most advanced Light concealing spell I can conjure," he said, rubbing his burnt hand. Gabriel nodded, when Sarah came in.

In her right hand she held a teacaddy, and in her left, she held a small bag of what looked like tealeaves. Opening the teacaddy, she took a handful of its contents and tossed it in the fire. Abruptly, the entire room was filled with the smoky scent of burning tea. Wordlessly, she poured some of the contents of the bag into the teacaddy.

"These are Tahria leaves. They supposedly put the victim in a sleep deeper than death itself," she explained, shrugging. "I don't know how old they are, but I found them in the potion chest."

"Won't Tom notice that his tea doesn't taste like tea?" asked Hayley, who had just walked in. Gabriel shook her head.

"He shouldn't. Sarah left half of the real tea in, and besides, with all of this sleeping stuff we're putting in it, he should be asleep before he notices anything," she pointed out. Sarah nodded, and Chenelle came in.

Chenelle had the hardest part of all. She had to serve Tom the tea without going to pieces in the process. She licked dry lips.

"All right, he's ready," she said in a croaky voice as she loaded all of the tea making items onto a tray. "And if I get caught, pray for my soul," she added shakily. The other four laughed as shakily as Chenelle herself had spoken.

"Good luck, Chenelle," Robert said softly. "Everything depends on how this is pulled off."

Sarah rolled her eyes, and gave Chenelle a corky, but very nervous smile. "So, no pressure."

Chenelle swallowed, and walked out the door, praying to whatever God or Goddess that had been watching over her for these last few years. If she ever needed luck, she needed it now.

# # #

The hairs on the back of Rosemary's neck prickled, and she clutched her books to her chest a little tighter. She didn't know why, but she felt more nervous than she ever did in her life. Something big was happening, but she couldn't figure out what. Looking up at the ceiling, she didn't notice that she was walking the same path as someone else, until she ran into that someone. In fact, into three other someones.

"Ouch!" cried Hermione Granger as she hit the floor, papers scattering everywhere. 

"Watch where you're walking!" Draco Malfoy snarled as he hoisted himself up onto his knees.

"Owie!" Cho Chang moaned as she rubbed her back. 

Rosemary didn't say anything; she just pulled herself up onto her haunches, and started to sort through papers to find what was hers. Cho Chang came over to help her, but Draco and Hermione stayed in their same positions, glaring at each other.

"Where's your little friends at, Granger?" he sneered at Hermione. Hermione bristled and gave her own little sneer back at Draco.

"I could ask the same of you, Malfoy!" she snapped in retaliation. Cho just sighed and flapped a paper in front of Draco's face.

"Is this yours, Malfoy?" she sighed. The paper was folded, rumpled, crumpled, and had the name 'Draco Malfoy' scrawled in large cursive letters on the front. Draco snatched the paper from her fingers.

"What do you think, Chang? If it says my name on it, then it's probably mine!" he snapped. Cho held her hands up in surrender.

"Sorry! I was just making sure! Touchy touchy," she said. Meanwhile, Hermione had caught a glimpse of Draco's paper.

"How can people read that chicken scratch?" she inquired. "You can't tell if you've got the right answers or not, because the writing is so sloppy!" 

Draco sneered. "And what are you? Teacher of Handwriting 101? Excuse me, Professor Granger!" Hermione was about to retort, but Rosemary, seeing the sparks beginning to fly, interrupted. 

"Both of you, enough. Just get your papers so we can get out of here, and to class," she chided. Grumbling, but heeding her advice, Hermione and Draco dropped to all fours and started sorting through pieces of parchment.

"Granger, this is yours," Draco said, throwing a piece of parchment into Hermione's face. Hermione grabbed it and shoved it into her bookbag.

Rosemary had found a piece of Cho's paper, and was about to hand it to her, when an odd smell filled her nose, making her sneeze. To her surprise, the others did the same. 

"It smells like tea!" Cho cried, sneezing again. Draco covered his nose and looked at her from a pair of watery eyes.

"Yeah, tea from a pepper plant!" he choked out.

"Wow, I feel sleepy....." Hermione said, yawning. Her head started to loll about uneasily, and then a vision flashed across her closed eyelids.

Nervous....Nervous.....Never been so nervous.....Escape tonight.....Tom's asleep....Not asleep yet?....When....

Along with these snippets of questions and statements that Hermione was hearing, she also was having some strange visions of tealeaves and tapestries. The tapestry showed the way to the sunny side, the Light over the Dark....

With a gasp, Hermione threw herself from the vision, and looked over at the other three. Three sets of terrified eyes met her own. Without another word, they snatched up their bookbags, and left the hall quickly.

# # #

"Chenelle, good to see you," Tom Riddle said, sounding overly good-natured to Chenelle. He was going to try to get information out of her, Chenelle thought bitterly. She set her jaw. But today, he wasn't going to push her around. Not today!

She began to fix the tea, trying to avoid Tom's eye. But she could feel his piercing gaze on her back as she maneuvered around, putting 'tealeaves' in the teaball, and dropping the ball into the 'water'. She turned around, trying to look cool and natural. It would be about five minutes before the tea finished steeping. Five minutes! It seemed like half an eternity.

"So, Chenelle," Tom said coolly. "How was you day, today?" Chenelle wiped sweat off of her upper lip.

"Just fine, Master. No different from any of the other ones, nor any after shall be," she recited, thinking very carefully about every word before letting her lips form it. Tom nodded, raising his eyebrows.

"I see! Well, then. I think that the tea is ready, my dear."

Chenelle nodded, and with shaking hands, poured tea into the teacup, watching as the amber liquid sloshed about. It looked like regular tea. Would Tom think it was? 

She handed him the teacup, and he looked at it. "Honey, if you please," he ordered. Chenelle wordlessly handed him the honey bowl, and he poured some in, mixing it slowly.

All of this waiting was agony to Chenelle. It took all of her restraint to keep from yelling 'Just drink it!'. But she kept it bottled inside.

Finally, he took a small sip. "Hmm. This tastes slightly....different. Spicier, I guess. Ahh, I'll have to get some more tea, then. I like it fresh better." And with that, he downed the entire cup.

Chenelle stood there, watching him yawn. The first two yawns, he didn't seem to mind much. It was after the third yawn when he looked at her, accusingly.

"You.....!" he started, but he fell asleep before he could finish his sentence.

Chenelle looked at him for a couple of seconds. Then she took one slow step back, followed by another. Finally, she turned tail and fled to where her friends were waiting.

# # #

Hayley ran out the door with her friends, the tapestry clutched in her right hand. They were going to follow this river trail; to wherever it led, or come back dead, they promised each other as they fled the castle.

Gabriel had the sword and shield clutched in her hands, and sprinted after Sarah, who was carrying a chain, she had found in her hand like a whip. Robert was just running, while Chenelle had a burlap sack slung over one shoulder.

Hayley looked behind at Castle Sapius, slowly disappearing behind the cloud of dust that they were kicking up. She had no idea where she was going, or if she was even going to get there.

One thing was for sure, she wasn't going back. 

Authors note: This part finished, one to go! (or, unless I get a severe case of what I like to call 'Writers Enlightenment', when you get an idea and can't stop typing about it.....That's happened to me several times before... -_-;;.) Well, tell me what you think! Questions, comments, oversized hunks of stone to chuck at my head? (well, I hope not....) 

~Moxie ^_^ (you know the spiel. No flames!)

Disclaimer: All of these riddles belong to me! I didn't even get any inspiration from anything! They're mine! ::Dances around with pride:: If you look over the story, you should know what is mine and what is property of J.K Rowling.....Or so I hope..... 


	9. Do You Believe in the Impossible?

Gabriel ran. She really didn't have the faintest idea to where she was running to, but she only had to look behind her at the disappearing black smear that was Castle Sapius to see what she was running from.

A part of her was dismayed: she was running from her problems, and in short, was acting like a scared rogue with no honor. But, what other choice was there? She sure as sure wasn't going to go back to face Tom Riddle, who was under a drugged sleep. Right now, she was reconsidering the wisdom of this action. Considering the fact that the five of them were bound to him by many complex spells in a pendant, drugging and running away from the person that basically held their lives in the palm of his hand...Well, dying like a hero would be better than living as a cowardly Dark Wizard, supposed Gabriel grimly.

Finally, Hayley collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily into the dust. Gabriel stood to wait for her, but when she stopped, she got immensely lightheaded, and her knees gave out from under her. Wiping sweat from her eyes, she flopped on her back next to Hayley, feeling her heart thumping in her throat.

She felt a sudden rush of air on her left side, and a groan. Sarah had fallen on her other side. Opening her eyes to slits, Gabriel saw the blurry figure of Robert, keeling over for breath, and Chenelle, who was sitting down across from her. Sweat decided to drip into her eyes at that moment, which burned.

"What.....does everyone.....say to....a nice.....rest?" panted Robert. Breathing too hard to talk, Gabriel nodded, and everyone leaned back on their elbows.

After a few minutes, Hayley hoisted herself up onto her haunches and looked around at her exhausted comrades.

"Does anyone have anything to eat?" Hayley asked, slightly breathless still. Sarah, Gabriel, Robert and Hayley looked at each other and groaned.

"I can't believe that we didn't think of that!" Sarah cried. "Robert, you're supposed to be the genius here, why didn't you think of it?"

Robert groaned again. "I am a genius. On paper, that is." Gabriel growled at him.

"Well, you being a genius on paper isn't going to help fill my stomach, is it?" she snapped at Robert. Chenelle just giggled.

"It's lucky for you that I was invited," she said coolly, producing the burlap sack that she had been toting around. Reaching into it, she threw everyone a shiny red apple, slightly bruised.

"Well, now we know why we weren't complete in number four," Sarah grumbled, biting into the apple. "We would have starved to death otherwise," she finished, spraying small flecks of apple flesh everywhere. Hayley wrinkled her nose.

"Don't chew with your mouth open, Sarah. It's disgusting," she complained. In response to this, Sarah gave her a sugary smile, and proceeded to chew as loudly and with her mouth as open as humanly possible, smacking her lips together.

Robert looked at her with disdain. "Why'd you have to bring it up, Hayley? You knew that that'd happen."

Hayley just looked at Sarah sadly, who was still putting on a show of what was in her mouth. Gabriel giggled.

"That's sick, Sarah. But, it's funny." Sarah smiled and swallowed.

"I live to displease," she said happily. She looked over at Hayley, who was picking at her apple skin, and peeling it off. Sarah was shocked out of her apple-eating charade for a moment.

"What're ya doin, Hayley?" she asked. Hayley looked at her for a second before resuming her peeling.

"I hate the skin of the apple. It tastes bad," she said softly. Gabriel and Sarah looked at her in disbelief.

"Here we are, in the middle of some desert, practically, and you're worrying about how something tastes?!" Gabriel cried, nearly dropping her apple. Hayley shrugged.

"I can't eat it with the skin on. It makes me gag, and I can't swallow it," she explained, tearing a shard of red off of the apple. "You want it?" she asked, holding it out to Sarah.

"Yes!" Sarah cried, taking it and jamming it in-between her teeth. Gabriel scowled.

"No fair! I get the next one!" she declared. Chenelle looked at the both of them, thoroughly amused.

"I never knew a pair to fight over the skin of an apple before," she said, grinning from ear to ear. Throwing her apple core to the side, she got up off of the ground, dusting off her hands on her coarse gown.

"I suggest we get a move on. If we're going to get anywhere from that castle, that is. Hayley can eat her neatly peeled apple on the way."

Hayley glared at her, but unrolled the tapestry that had been lying across her lap during the entire conversation. Unraveled, she ran her finger along the blue river that was their path. To her surprise, along the river, there was the tiniest little golden boat, which was apparently floating placidly on the shore.

"I think that we're right here," she said, pointing to the boat, which was about an inch along the river, and the river was about twenty inches long. There was one unanimous groan from the five of them.

"The stupid cross-stitch didn't say anything about a scale!" Robert cried, looking incrediculously at the marker, and at the distance that they had to travel.

"How long have we been running?" inquired Gabriel. Chenelle looked at the sky, as if trying to tell by the shade of the sky.

"Well, we left at about nine, so I'd say it's about one in the morning," she said smoothly. Sarah looked at her, jaw dropped.

"We ran for four hours straight?! That-that's not possible!" she protested. "We would have collapsed by now, into a faint!" 

Chenelle shrugged. "That's what time it is, and the sky doesn't lie, so they say."

Hayley squinted back at the black dot on the horizon that was Castle Sapius. "Well, whatever we do, I don't care how long we've been running, now isn't the time to stop!" she said. Four other heads nodded in agreement, and they began, slowly, painfully, to walk.

# # #

With all of the sleeping spells, Light and Dark, that the foursome had conjured, you'd think that Tom Riddle would have slept for about a century. But, unfortunately for the five traveling children, Tom had acquired a resistance of some sort to Dark magic. With a soft snort and a loud groan, Tom Riddle roused from his drugged slumber.

At first, he just sat there contentedly, gazing at the wall through half-lidded eyes. Then the events of the past hours hit him in the face. Eyes bulging, he rocketed awake, leaping out of the chair.

"What.....?!" he asked confusedly, trying to recall more than scant wisps of memory of what had occurred right under his nose. Walking over to the forsaken teaset, he looked at the teapot and teakettle. Squinting at them, he noted that they shimmered faintly.

"Cloaking spells, Light cloaking spells at that," he noted carefully. Opening the teakettle, he saw that some of the 'water' from his tea was still in the kettle. Dipping a finger in carefully, he noted that it had congealed, and was sticky, like glue.

"Sleeping potions...." he opened the teacaddy and took a small sniff. "...and Tahara leaves. I always knew that they were smarter than they let on to be," he said slowly.

He blushed faintly at the fact of how five barely trained children had outwitted the Dark Lord. But he shook it off, and the blush turned to one of a tinge of anger. A couple of weeks in the dungeons ought to change their tunes, he thought angrily.

"And if all else fails, there's always the trump..." he trailed off, fingering his pendant. But he wasn't going to kill them. Not yet. There was too much potential there to be wasted like that, judging from the fact that they had been able to pull a fast one on him, and he had never really suspected anything.

Snapping out of his daze, Tom dropped his pendant from his fingers, and started to pick up his pace to a quick trot. Ripping through tapestries, talking to pictures with hidden entrances behind them, pulling levers and pulleys that were disguised as other things, he made his way through the castle.

Finally, he emerged outside, near the western wing of the castle. Looking over the barren landscape, he saw no forms of life anywhere, and he sighed. They had to be somewhere. They couldn't leave the dimension without his knowing so, right? Right. But, why were they running away if there was nowhere to go?

Brushing this thought from his mind, he turned to the expanse of stone wall in front of him. It was the only one that was seemingly just a stone wall, with no windows, drawbridges, or large doors on it. But looks were deceiving. Tom planted his feet and turned to face the wall.

"Come out," he said to the wall. Except for the fact that he didn't say it, exactly. He hissed it.

From behind the wall, there was a great amount of rustling and thrashing about. The wall of the castle started to distort itself, until there was a gaping black hole in the middle of it. Tom Riddle waited patiently for his 'pet' to appear.

In one fluid, watery motion, a gigantic snake slithered out of the hole, rearing its head up in a dramatic display. It was a large cobra, with fangs longer than redwood trees, whiter than snow, and sharper than serrated steak knives. The serpent itself was a black, that was darker than night itself, and the markings on the folds of skin that framed the cobra's head were a dark, bloody crimson.

"Very good. I need you to go on a mission for me, my friend," Tom hissed out. "There are five people on our lands. I need you to go and put them under the Big Stillness for me. No Bloodkill, just Big Stillness. Bring them to me."

If you're going to work with snakes for allies, Tom learned quickly; you have to talk the way they talk. When a basilisk Petrifies people, they know it as the 'Big Stillness'. But when a victim is killed by the full blast of its deadly glare, or is bitten fatally by one of its saber-like teeth, it is known better as the 'Bloodkill'.

"Big Ssstillness....yesss Masster...." the snake said faintly, as if already envisioning it's victim's fate. Tom Riddle nodded.

"Be off with you, then," he hissed. The gargantuan serpent nodded, and slithered off in the direction that the fivesome took; it's delicate tongue tasting the air.

Tom Riddle watched it for a moment before turning on his heel and walking in the castle once again.

# # #

Robert looked over his shoulder. He had the strangest feeling that someone was following him, but whenever he looked behind him, there was nothing there. Biting down that horrible feeling that you get when you think that something is stalking you, but you can't see it, he forced his wobbly legs to take one more step.

Panting, he wiped sweat off of his forehead. They must have at least been walking for twelve hours. How Robert made it that far, was obviously not for him to know. Finally, he knew when his poor limbs had had enough. Letting his knees cave in from under him, he fell onto the ground, and looked up at the girls. They weren't looking that keen themselves, either.

Petticoats and heavy shoes and stockings had long since been discarded haphazardly along the path side. When Robert saw Hayley throw her last stocking over to her side, he sighed sadly. Now anyone could follow their trail, just by looking.

Sarah flopped next to him. She cut a comical figure, with one of her petticoats wadded up around her head like a turban.

"I'm exhausted. Does a little nap sound good to anyone right now?" she asked. Everybody nodded, except for Chenelle, who frowned.

"Not that I'm against a little rest, but someone needs to stay up, in case...well something attacks. You never know when Mast-I mean Tom, will wake up. Now, who will take first watch?" she asked. Nobody volunteered.

Gabriel groaned, and took her sword out from where she had thrust it in her velvet dress. "I'll put this on the ground and spin it. Whoever it points to is the person with first watch. Fair enough?" she proposed. The others shrugged.

"Sounds fine with me," Hayley said. Gabriel put it in the center of them, and gave it a hefty twirl, so nobody could accuse her for being biased.

The sword spun crazily for hours, so it seemed. Then it slowed down a bit. Then a little bit more. Finally, it was going slower than a turtle crossing the road. Slower....Slower....Slower still......Stop on.......Hayley.

Hayley made a face. "Darn. How long is first watch?" she inquired. Sarah unwound her petticoat-turban, and fluffed it into a pillow.

"When one of us wakes up," she said drowsily. "Which won't be me for a while, I'm afraid. I'm totally zonked."

Chenelle saw the dismayed look on Hayley's face, and patted her shoulder. "When you think that you're going to fall asleep, just wake me up. I'll take second watch. Unlike lazybones over there," she said with a venomous glare at Sarah. "We'll just make sure she has the longest watch of all."

Sarah just smiled with her eyes closed, and yawned slightly. "Just as long as I can sleep for about eighteen hours, I'll watch as long as you want...." she trailed off, ending with a snore.

Gabriel put her hands under her head. "Just don't make too much noise, all right, Hayley?" she mumbled as she fell into slumber.

Robert didn't say anything; he rolled over and gave a sleepy snort. Chenelle gave Hayley a small wink. "It won't take that long, I promise."

Hayley watched, jealous, as her friends slumbered. "Stupid sword," she growled, looking at the blade that Gabriel clutched to her chest.

That was when the first wave of real sleepiness hit her. Her eyelids felt like thousand pound granite slabs, and it took all of her strength to keep them open. Hayley's arms and legs felt suddenly too heavy, and her heartrate seemed to slow.

"They won't mind if I just rest my eyes for a moment," she reasoned with herself sleepily. And with that, Hayley Hufflepuff drifted into a deep sleep, just like her friends.

# # #

The deadly basilisk flicked his tongue in the air, tasting the thickness of it, and searching around with its eyes that could not see color.

Flicking out its tongue again, the adder tasted many things on the wind. It tasted of the dryness of the land now, and a slight hint of vegetation hung in the air; signs of what this place used to be before evil contaminated it. The great serpent also tasted the hot air, and the magic that had swirled into the sky, polluting the atmosphere. It left a sour tang on the snake's delicate tongue.

Shaking his head, the basilisk strained its abilities to the farthest to seek its prey. Finally, after about five more minutes of tasting, the serpent found what it was seeking for; the arid-salty taste of human sweat. Taking a deep breath in its nostrils, he breathed in the scent of damp breath, human skin, and the shampoo that humans always used.

Looking down, the adder noticed a large scrap of light cloth - a petticoat. Nudging it around with his nose, he got the scent down pat, and roused up again, taking another deep smell of the air. The smell was strong here. They couldn't be far.

Arching its head over to the left, the snake saw a little smear of blackness on the horizon: the camp that the fivesome had staked out.

The basilisk slithered quickly and quietly over there, trying to use the snake's ability of the element of surprise. When he got up there, the snake was pleased in a cynical way to find that his prey was fast asleep. But, sadly for the serpent, the slight gust of wind caused by the snake's movements was enough to wake Gabriel.

# # #

Gabriel had been enjoying a peaceful slumber, when a blast of wind hit her in the face. It wasn't very strong, but strong enough to wake her up slightly.

"'Not time for my watch yet, Chenelle. Five more minutes," she complained. She was about to roll over and go back to sleep, when there was an odd occurrence.

Bright red, misty fog erupted in front of Gabriel's eyelids, spoiling the darkness. Before she could react, a voice sounded in her brain.

"Rise, Gabriel! Rise now, lest you meet your doom!" the voice implored her. Gabriel noted the fact that the voice was male, and very gallant sounding. Gabriel thought that the voice must know what it was talking about, so she opened her eyes a crack.

You could imagine her reaction when she saw a gigantic black snake looming over her, ominously. A blood-curdling scream escaped her lips, waking Chenelle, Hayley and Robert. Sarah remained asleep.

The snake lunged on Gabriel, and Gabriel did her first reaction, she pulled out her shield, and the serpent bounced off of it, hissing angrily. With the impact, Gabriel felt her bones rattle, and the shield slip.

Robert was too awed to move a muscle. He sat there stupidly, staring up at the reptile, with a dropped jaw, when a voice rang in his head, loudly.

"Don't look it in the eyes! Whatever you do, don't look it in the eyes!" an intelligent sounding female voice said.

"Don't look it in the eyes!" Robert yelled to Gabriel, who was clumsily fending off the adder with her sword. This was fortunate, since at the next moment the snake decided that fighting was silly, and to paralyze this feeble human would save precious energy. Gabriel shut her eyes just in time.

Chenelle looked at Sarah in awe, who was still snoozing though all of the drama that was taking place. "How can she sleep through this?!" she cried.

Sarah rolled over, smacking her lips contentedly, while the basilisk and Gabriel battled on. Sarah herself was enjoying a peaceful nap, when it was interrupted the same way that Gabriel's had been, almost.

Green fog swirled in front of Sarah's eyelids. A snooty, slightly stuck up male voice spoke loudly, as if he were yelling into her ear.

"Get up! Fight!" it screamed at her. Sarah winced in her sleep and tossed in her spot on the ground, sending up dust.

"Don' wanna fight. Don' know how to fight. 'Wanna sleep," she mumbled to the annoying voice. There was something of an aggravated sigh.

"I'm not arguing with you, you impudent child! Get up! You're a parseltongue, you can help! That's all I have to say, all in the Slytherin blood line are....." the voice trailed off.

Sarah's brain festered in her half-awake daze. Wasn't a parseltongue someone that could talk to snakes? She couldn't talk to snakes, could she?

Opening an eyelid, Sarah found herself face to face with a scene that was both horrifying and amusing at the same time; Gabriel trying to take on a gigantic snake. Strangely, Sarah felt no danger from the snake, but she felt more afraid for Gabriel's welfare at the moment. Finally, the snake got tired of Gabriel's antics, and caught her in a sideswipe with it's thick tail. Gabriel screamed and landed on her left ankle with a slight crack.

Sarah was furious. Grabbing her chain-whip, she slung it out with no grace of muscle or thought. But it hit the mark. The metallic crack of metal hitting scales echoed throughout the area, and the next sound was the snake screeching in pain. Sarah sighed.

"Along with breaking that dragon'sss arm, running away from Tom Riddle, that wasss probably the third ssstupid thing that I've done here," she muttered. Except for the fact that she didn't exactly mutter it.

"She-she just hissed!" Robert cried, backing away from Sarah as if she were some kind of monster.

"What'sss your problem?" asked Sarah, momentarily forgetting all about the adder, who was also looking at her curiously. Then Sarah noticed that she had just issued a hissing noise from her throat. She reeled back a couple of steps, clutching her throat.

"What the...Well I'll be damned! I really am a parssseltongue!" she hissed happily. The snake reared its head level with her own. Sarah forgot not to look in the snake's eyes, but, oddly, she hadn't been paralyzed. The snake's eyes were black and glossy, just like a normal snake's would be.

"Massster call? You no Massster. Massster bigger," the snake hissed curiously, trying to identify her scent. Sarah frowned.

"Masster? What Masster look like?" asked Sarah. The snake looked at Sarah harder. The other four humans looked at Sarah in surprise, but Sarah ignored them.

"Masster look like you, two legged snake. He dark topped. Masster talksss to me. You no Masster, but you talk," the basilisk said. Sarah tugged on her lip slightly, thinking. That did sound like Tom Riddle. But then she brightened. This could be useful.

"I your new Masster for now. Me and other two-legged sssnakes need help from great reptile you are," Sarah said, trying to sound flattering. It must have worked, since the snake seemed to puff up proudly.

"What you and other two-leg sssnakes need?" the adder asked. Sarah grinned.

"We need ride from big ssstrong you. Can you handle that?" Sarah hissed. The basilisk gave something of a snakey grin.

"Yessss, Massster," the snake said. Sarah turned to the others, grinning.

"What would you guys say to a little lift?" she asked, in plain English. The other four gawked at her as if she was crazy.

"On that thing?!" asked Hayley, pointing a crazed finger at the snake. "Are you insane?! He'd eat us, or something!" Sarah shrugged.

"You want to walk?" she asked again, looking at Robert.

Robert looked up at the ninety-foot tall reptile. This was against his better judgement, but he didn't think that his legs would willingly take another step. He looked at Hayley, Chenelle, and Gabriel, who was shredding up Sarah's head-petticoat to bandage her swollen ankle that she had fallen on. Gabriel looked angrily at the snake, but then sighed.

"Well, I don't think that I can walk on this ankle," Gabriel reasoned, wincing as she wrapped the white strips around her injured limb carefully. Robert sighed.

"I don't think that I could walk anymore anyway," he admitted softly. Chenelle looked at Hayley.

"You're outnumbered," she pointed out to Hayley. "I'm all for accepting a ride. It'll be faster," Chenelle said sensibly. Hayley scuffed a bare, dirty foot up against the ground. Finally, she threw her hands up in the air in resignation.

"Oh, all right. I could use a sleep, anyway," she said forcibly. Sarah grinned at her four friends. 

"I knew you'd see it my way," she said, winking. She turned to the gigantic snake, hissed something, and he leaned his head down on the ground. Gingerly, the fivesome climbed on the large head of the reptile.

It was quite slippery, and there was nothing to hold on to. But as the snake started to move, they were relieved to find that the ride was a little wavery, but smooth. After hissing instructions to the snake, Sarah settled back onto the scales, basking herself in the sun.

"Well, this isn't too bad. We've got a ride at any rate, and we don't have to walk anymore," she said lazily, toying with her chain. Hayley yawned and settled back on the scales with Sarah.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that this is the end of our problems."

# # # 

Far away, there was a heated debate going on.

"That was too close for comfort," a worried, motherly voice said. "They're going to get themselves killed."

An aggravated sigh sounded. "They're fine," a slightly nasal, flutey voice said angrily. "Honestly, they can take care of themselves. You act like they're children."

"They are children," a highly educated female voice snapped. "And you act as if they are competent adults, which they aren't."

"Now now," a tired male said. "Arguing about it isn't helping anybody do anything."

The owner of the motherly voice turned around and glared at the man that had just spoken. "I don't think that arguing about it is doing anybody any good either!" she cried. "But warrior man over there is going to get our descendants killed! Don't you care?"

"Of course I care, Helga," the male voice snapped. "I just happen to think that they should fight their own battles! Us interfering isn't going to help anybody either!"

The owner of the male voice that spoke first sounded astonished. "Why, Godric, you agree with me! That's a first," he finished sarcastically.

"Shut up, Salazar. You're just still bitter over that fight that you lost-"

"I didn't lose! You cheated!"

"Cheated? How did I cheat?!"

"You used Light Magic, you fool! That's not exactly allowed in a wizarding duel!"

"I only used it to counter your Dark Magic! And is that regulated, using the Arts?!"

"Light Magic is more powerful than Dark! And I didn't use the Arts, either!"

"Well, Dark Magic is stronger than wand magic! And you did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"You did too, you-you cowardly snake!" Godric cried, fumbling for words.

Salazar stared, aghast for a moment, before falling on his side in peels of laughter.

"Well, Godric, old friend, you've got me there! I'm-I'm a cowardly snake! Oh oh oh oh oh oh!" he said, tears of mirth starting to spill down his cheeks. Helga, the owner of the motherly voice, looked at the pair incredulously.

"I fail to see what is so funny, Salazar. But, you two and your childish fights aren't helping this anymore than Rowena and I worrying. In fact, this is probably making it worse." 

The intelligent sounding voice rang out again. "I think that we had better just sit around and see what happens. If we are needed, we shall know."

"Are you sure?" asked Helga uncertainly.

"Have I ever been wrong?" countered Rowena. Helga gave a faint smile.

"Well, no. Not to my knowledge, at least, Rowena."

The two ladies looked at the men, who were still squabbling over nothing at all. Helga sighed.

"You know, now that I think about it, it's better that we oversee things at a distance. If anybody met the real Hogwarts founders, I'm afraid of what they would think."

Rowena gave a short laugh, and preceded to watch the two male founders fight.

# # #

Tom Riddle thumped his foot against the floor in aggravation. What was taking that addlebrained snake so long? The children couldn't have gone that far, could they? It was humanly impossible in such a short amount of time. And besides, a snake's keen sense of smell would have sought them out by now, wouldn't it? 

Finally running out of patience, he sprang to his feet, and walked over to the fireplace.

"Elestrapa," he said, pointing to the unburnt logs in the fireplace. The logs instantly exploded into a roaring purple inferno, quickly swallowing up the wood.

Walking over to the mantle, he pulled off a small pouch, and looked inside of it. It was a black velvet sack, and the inside had a slight dusty sheen to it, indicating that there had been powder in it at one point in time.

"Wonderful timing to run out of Seerdust," Tom cursed under his breath. Looking from the pouch to the fire, and back to the pouch again, and sighed. Walking up to the flames, he tossed the pouch in the fire.

The velvet instantly roared into a purple fireball, and shriveled up into a smoldering scrap in an elapsed time of about ten seconds. The powder that had been in the pouch crackled over one of the logs, making the fire flicker and pop.

Finally, the flames changed from the purple to an eye scorching yellow, to a mellow green, and lastly to a black. Black fire! A very odd occurrence, but Tom Riddle paid it no heed. He waited patiently, until a very blurry image of Hayley, Sarah, Robert, Gabriel, Chenelle, and the basilisk riding through the desert-like countryside appeared in the leaping obsidian flames.

Tom gnashed his teeth together in anger. So, he had been betrayed, had he? And by his own serpent, too! But when he leaned forwards for a closer look, there was a dazzling explosion of white, red, green, blue and yellow light, knocking Tom back onto his heels, covering his eyes in pain.

When he got up the nerve to look again, all there was a pile of charred logs and a hearth that was covered in black ash. Picking up a poker that was in a fire set by the fireplace, Tom smacked at one of the logs, to see if it had been magicked.

The log broke into two and crumbled into the fireplace, just as a normal firelog would have. Putting down the poker, he ran his hand along the ash that had been scattered onto the hearth. 

On closer inspection, the ash felt like regular ash, it smelt like regular ash, and it even tasted like ash, once he got up the nerve to taste it. Spitting ruefully onto the ground, he wiped his hand on his black tunic and rose to his feet. He wanted to try to See into the fire again, but for one thing, he was out of powder, and for another, he had seen all he really needed to see. His adder had betrayed him.

Walking to the exit of the room, a small smirk emerged on Tom's features. He knew what he was going to do now. Sure, the snake had left him, but that didn't mean that there weren't other creatures around to do his bidding.

Now, where were those dragons at?

# # # 

Chenelle smoothed out the tapestry/map, and looked down at it. Sweat dripped off of her nose and onto the map. Cursing lightly, she wiped her face off onto the sleeve of her rough gown and looked at the others.

They weren't looking so great either. It was hot up here on top of a giant black animal, and what was worse, was the fact that there was no water. Chenelle hadn't thought about it, the night that she had fled from the castle, and she was sorely regretting it now. 

"You know," Robert rasped, "human beings can't go more than four days without water. And with the weather always like it is, I don't know how much longer we'll last out here."

"Oh, that's comforting," Sarah snapped weakly. "That's all I need to hear, is the fact that I'm gonna die here soon."

Hayley raised her head off of the snake's head. "How many days has it been, Chenelle?" Chenelle looked up at the sky. She had long since lost track of time and its meaning, but she tried to answer her friend.

"I think three days, but I have no clue," she answered faintly. "All of the days have gotten muddled up in my head. But look, we only have about three more inches to go on this map of yours, Hayley."

Gabriel groaned, and tenderly rubbed her ankle, which had since swelled to the size of a balloon. "Good. The way this snake sways is making me seasick. Is everyone sure that they didn't learn some sort of healing spell?" she asked hopefully. Everybody else groaned. Gabriel had been asking that question for about the last two days, at least.

"No, Gabriel, I don't!" croaked Sarah. "Please stop asking. It's too blasted hot to get worked up."

It was true. While the land of Sapius (as they called it), was freezing at night, it was very hot during the day, and all five of the children were sunburnt quite badly.

"I'm thirsty," complained Hayley softly. Sarah felt her head beginning to throb with anger and heat, and she was about to retort, but decided that it was too hot for annoyance.

Robert, who was sitting on the snake facing backwards, watched the desolate landscape pass by behind him. He yawned. Although that he wasn't doing any walking, the heat was making his sleepy. That was when he noticed a faint smear on the horizon. He squinted at it.

"Hey, you guys....What's that?"

# # #

Tom Riddle kicked the sides of the dragon that he was riding on - Aquanus- viciously.

"Come on, can't you go any faster?" he snarled at the blue dragon. The dragon turned its head slightly, just barely resisting the urge to buck the rider off. But he knew that if he did that, he would be Tom's new throw rug in the morning.

--I could, Master, but then we might fly by them,-- he contented himself to saying. Tom groaned.

"Isn't there a happy medium between going too fast and too slow?" Tom snapped. Carnash sighed, and scratched at her pink scales.

--Forgive me, Master for asking, but I have a question,-- she said. Tom looked over at her.

"What is it?" he asked angrily. His tone of voice didn't put Carnash off at all. She scratched at her pink scales again before answering.

--We can see the humans that you're after. I just don't see why we can't attack them now, and get it done with. Why all of this following?-- 

Tom sighed. Dragons had no sense of logic about them at all. "Because, I want to see where they're going, so I can prevent them from leaving again. If I just take them back now, I what's going to stop them from trying this again?" 

Hunter, the green dragon, sidled up to them. --Umm, aren't they just children? Can't you just put some kind of tab on them, Master? You know, to keep them from running away again?-- he asked. Tom started to get aggravated.

"I do have tabs on them! They're called binding pendants!" he cried, barely keeping his voice from a shout.

--Then why don't you use them?-- Aquanus asked innocently. Tom smacked a hand to his head and drug it down his face.

"Because I don't want to kill them! It's a waste of talent! If they could get past me, then they must be pretty talented! Now stop bugging me with your idiotic questions and get moving!" he screeched.

The dragons flew on.

# # #

"What's what?" Gabriel asked lazily in response to Robert's question. Robert pointed to the moving dot on the horizon.

"That. See it? That moving smudge. I think we're being followed again," he said heavily. Gabriel squinted at he sky, shading her eyes.

"I don't - oh wait, yeah, I see it. Hey Sarah?"

"Hey what?"

"You don't think that you could make this snake go faster, do you? We're being followed," Gabriel said, pointing to the sky.

Sarah, Hayley and Chenelle rocketed up at once. Chenelle scrambled over to the other side of the snake's head, and peered at the sky.

"What? Oh my God. Sarah?" 

"All right, all right! Give me a second to get over there, would you?" Sarah asked irritably. Crawling over to the snake's face, she leaned over to speak to him.

Despite his passengers deteriorating health, the adder was quite healthy, and enjoying his spell out in the sun after being in the dark for so long. Basilisks could go without food and water for centuries if need be, and could travel nonstop for about a month on end.

"Hey....We're being followed. Do you think that you could go any fassster?" Sarah hissed in his ear. The snake looked back.

"Okay, if you ssssay sssso," the serpant hissed back. "Hang on..."

It's a little known fact, Sarah and her friends soon found out, but snakes can go very fast if they want to. Pretty soon the adder was slithering at breakneck speed down the desert, kicking up a large cloud of dust in its wake.

Everybody was thrown totally off-kilter by the speed. In an act of desperation, Sarah hurled her chain whip around its throat with one hand and caught it with the other when it came back, so it acted like a crude bridle. Chenelle clamped on her legs, and Gabriel grabbed Chenelle's waist, and at the last moment, Hayley caught a fistful of Chenelle's dress.

Robert, however, was another story. Poor Robert tried to grab on to Hayley, but his grip missed, and he fell off of the head of the snake.

Luckily for him, before he hit the ground, the snake's tail, (which was switching madly back and forth), stopped him from being splattered onto the ground. When he hit the flesh, he bounced slightly, but he caught a decent grip on the whipping tail, and held on for dear life, coughing up trail dust as he went.

This was not going too well, thought Robert idly as he fought to breathe.

# # #

Essex walked around the corner. Her next class was Astronomy, but it was too blasted hot in the tall tower to sit through it and listen to Professor Copperpot put her to sleep. Walking around aimlessly, she decided to skip. It wouldn't matter anyhow, for the fact that there was no exam today or anything, and she could get the notes off of someone else. She was looking around for a place to hide until class started, when she found it. Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Looking up and down the halls to make sure that nobody was around, she pushed open the door to the bathroom.

It was pitch black, as the small guttering candles decided that they had had enough of trying to keep alight, and had finally gone out. Taking out her wand, she waved it in the air a few times.

"Lumos," she muttered to it. The tip of her wand lit up with a slight pop and a sparkle, and threw shadows over everything.

There really wasn't much to look at. The floor was totally covered with water, and it reflected the light of the wand around the room hazily. Gray, rotting stalls stood silent on the left side of the room, some of them nearly falling apart. Essex sighed. What a fun way to spend the hour. Still, it was better than broiling up in the Astronomy tower with Professor Copperpot.

Shoes squelching in the water, she walked up to the row of sinks, the one that was farthest from the door in particular. 

The mirror in front of the sink was severely cracked, and a huge portion of it had finally fallen out, and the pieces of it were on the floor. Looking down at the sink, she saw the fabled snake engraved on the tap. Although she knew it was useless, she gave the knob a slight turn to the left.

The Chamber of Secrets lay behind this plain sink, and it was fascinating to think that something so ordinary could hide something so significant behind it. That Salazar was a crafty one, that was for sure. Sometimes Essex was almost jealous of her best friend for being related to him. What right-minded Slytherin wouldn't be at least a little jealous of the girl that shared the same name as one of the Hogwarts founders? Although Essex wasn't so sure that she would want Hufflepuff for a last name, the recognition...

"So, you've come in here to disturb me too?" came a blurble of a voice.

Essex's heart nearly jumped into her throat when she heard that. Whirling around, she was relieved to find that it was only Moaning Myrtle.

"Myrtle, oh, you gave me a fright. I'm glad to see that it's only you..." Essex breathed in relief.

Myrtle gave a strangled sob and buried her face into her hands. "Only me! I'm sorry that I'm not good enough for you!" she sobbed.

Essex slapped a hand to her head. Myrtle had a knack for taking things the wrong way. "No, no Myrtle, I didn't mean it like that..." she began, but Myrtle cut her off again.

"I know when I'm not wanted! You could have just told me in the first place!" she cried, flying back into her stall. Essex started to go after her, when Myrtle plunged into the toilet, and started sobbing around the U-bend.

That was when Essex heard a sneeze in the stall next to her. Sloshing through the near three inches of water, she gently pulled the stall door open.

It was Alex! Essex was just as surprised to see him as he was her, and they silently regarded each other for a few seconds, before Alex piped up.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, seeming genuinely surprised. Essex raised her eyebrows.

"Same to you. Hey. Aren't you a Ravenclaw?" she asked. Alex, who had been using the broken toilet as a seat, stood up.

"Yeah. What's it to ya?" he asked indignantly. Essex scratched her head.

"Don't your kind, like, never miss a class, or something to that degree? Aren't you supposed to like school?" she asked. Alex shook his head.

"I like school. I don't like Professor Trelawney's class, though. It's a load of crack, and I don't even care about what happens in the future much anymore. It's best just to take it as it comes, as I say. What are you skiving?"

"Astronomy. It's hotter than Hell's inferno up there," she answered, backing up and leaning against one of the sinks.

Alex studied her for a moment. "Aren't you Sarah Slytherin's best friend, or something? I saw you with her all of the time before she disappeared."

"Yeah. You hang with that Robert kid, don't you?"

"Before he left, I did," Alex corrected.

"Same difference," Essex replied, rolling her eyes in the back of her head. Alex fiddled with a strap on his bookbag.

"Worried?" he asked softly.

"Worried about what?" Essex asked, although she knew what he was trying to get at.

"You know, Sarah and crew."

"Well, yes, but I think that she's got...a decent head on her shoulders, and she can take care of herself. Isn't Robert like, tied for smartest kid to ever grace the halls of Hogwarts or something? I wouldn't worry too much about it if I were you," Essex answered confidentially.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Alex admitted softly, looking out of one of the heavily fogged windows at the dismal sunlight that filtered in the room.

# # #

If Alex could have seen the position of Robert at the moment, he probably would have gone into hysterics. Riding on the tail end of a snake, grabbing on for dear life, and under constant danger of suffocation by breathing in too much dust, the going was not easy for Robert. Although he was - quite literally - hanging in there as well as he could.

"The tapestry!" came a faint cry from Hayley as a white piece of fabric smacked into Robert's face.

"Gyah! For the love of Christ!" Robert cried, as he tried to peel it away from his face. But then he decided to keep it there, for even though he couldn't see anything anymore, the cloth made it easier to breathe.

"Slow the snake down, Sarah!" came the bedraggled voice of Gabriel. "For God's sake, slow it down! Robert's getting trampled down there!"

"Sarah?" Chenelle yelled over the rush of air. "Sarah, can you hear us? Slow the stupid reptile down!"

Sarah's voice seared through the atmosphere like razor-sharp scissors through fine linen cloth. "I'm working on it! Give me a couple of seconds! Sheesh, crucify me, why don't'cha?"

"Well, work faster," Robert mumbled into his cloth-headcover. Although for the fact that he probably could have yelled at the top of his lungs, and Sarah wouldn't have heard.

Straggling to the snake's head, Sarah started to hoarsely whisper to the adder.

"Okay, that'ssss enough, you can ssstop now!" she cried. The snake gave something of a shrug.

"Asss you wisssh," it hissed in reply. Abruptly, the snake stopped in place, making everybody fly forward slightly.

Robert moaned, hoisted himself up onto wobbly knees, and peeled the dirty tapestry from his face. When he could see again, he nearly fainted.

About fifty feet in front of him, the pinkish-purple-gray cloud cover parted, and a beam of yellow sunlight streamed forth from the partition. Where the sun hit the ground was a small patch of green grass, in a perfect circle. On the patch of grass were the charred remains of wood; there had obviously been a house there at one point of time.

Letting out a whoop of delight, Robert sprinted towards the grass, forgetting all about his sore body, and leapt onto the grass.

It felt wonderful. After weeks of living where the only scenery was barren, dried dirt and leafless trees, lying in a patch of cool green grass was pure heaven. Rolling over onto his back, he peered up into the break in the sky. The tiniest space of bright blue sky showed up livid against the ominous purple-pink clouds. Robert sighed, and forgetting all about everything else for the moment, relaxed in the sun. He had forgotten how much he missed it.

He was rudely aroused from his half-slumber by Sarah gently prodding him in the stomach with a dirty foot.

"Come on, Lazybones. You can bask in the sunlight when we get back home. Get up," she ordered him, offering him a hand, which he grudgingly took.

Gabriel sighed pleasurably and rubbed her bare feet in the grass. "You've got to admit, though, it feels good to walk on nice, fresh grass again."

Sarah sighed and lightly ran a hand along the tips of the grass blades. "Well, yes," she admitted. "It's amazing how much you take it for granted at home."

While the other three were admiring the grass, Chenelle and Hayley were rummaging around in the remains of the house, looking for stuff.

"Whatever was here sure did a number on this poor house," Chenelle said, holding up a bent spoon. Hayley nodded.

"I'll say, what if this happened to all of the other houses and the people?" she asked, pulling away a slab of charred wood. "Hey, look!" she cried, hoisting something up.

It was a very burnt, rusted poker. It wasn't much for looks, but the edges were sharp, and it had some pretty carvings on it. Chenelle shrugged.

"It'll do in a pinch," she said, hoisting up a short section of wood with a nail protruding out of it. "What do you think of this for a weapon?" she asked, giving it a practice swing. Gabriel looked at her oddly.

"Why do you need a weapon?" she asked. "We're going to be leaving soon, I hope." Chenelle turned to her and gave a slight shudder.

"I don't know. It's like a premonition, or something. I have a terrible feeling that we're going to need something to defend ourselves with in a moment. And last time I had a premonition like this was way back when I was very little, and that was the day that Voldemort killed my parents and made off with me," she finished. Robert looked over at her.

"Well, let's get out of here, then! I don't want to be around here to find out if your premonition is right or not. Now, does anybody know how to use Yongher Meridian?" he asked.

Silence fell upon the five. Then there was a unanimous groan from them all.

"You mean to tell me that nobody looked up how to use Yongher Meridian?!" Sarah howled to everybody.

"I know the rhyme for it, but not how to use it," Hayley groaned, slapping a hand to her face. "Well, what now?"

More silence. Sarah opened her mouth to make a very sarcastic; cutting remark, but it was cut short by a booming chorus of voices so loud that it made the fivesome clap their hands over their ears. No matter, though, since the voices came from inside their brains, and plugging their ears didn't help much.

"Blood will take you home with ease,

Use the spell as you please,

Though time and dimension it will freeze," the voices chanted.

The five stood there for a moment, massaging their sore skulls, which seemed to be throbbing from the volume of the voices.

"Well, blood it is, then," Robert said weakly. Hayley went slightly green at this, but then reclaimed her posture.

"Anything to get me home again," she said heavily.

Gabriel found a thorny branch under the smoldered rubble of the forsaken house, and thoroughly cut her hands with it until they were bleeding profusely, and passed the sharp branch over to Chenelle.

"Aren't we supposed to unite, or something? Well, cut your hands up, and then we can join hands, and do the little spell thingy," she ordered, pointing with a bloody hand.

"Capital idea," Robert said, looking sickened by Gabriel's palms. Anyway, the stick was passed around to everybody, and when they were done savaging their flesh, Gabriel dropped the thorny stick, and held one hand out to Chenelle, the other to Robert.

When they had worked themselves into a circle, gripping hands, Hayley took a shuddering breath.

"Shall we get on with it?" she asked meekly. The others nodded, but Sarah turned around and winked at the basilisk, which was waiting patiently.

"You were awesssome," she hissed quietly. "Thank you." The adder gave something of a faint snake blush.

"You're welcome, Massster," it said, seemingly sheepishly. Sarah grinned.

Chenelle rolled her eyes in the back of her head. "Now that the reptilian good-byes have been issued, can we leave?" she asked.

Gabriel sighed. "Let's get on with it, shall we?" taking a breath, in unison, so it seemed, the fivesome began to chant.

"In the name of all joy and Light,

I call upon the spell of the Yongher Meridian,

Take me from this wretched place tonight,

And send my spirit home again."

The first time they said it, nothing happened. They tried again, and nothing happened. On the third time, nothing happened either. Feeling heartbroakenly disappointed, they were about to drop hands and try to think of something else to do, when it happened.

It was at first little more than a slight tickle in their clasped hands, but the tickle soon advanced to that of a scratch, and then it emerged into a fierce burn. Forgetting all rules about being as quiet as possible, they all screamed.

The sunlight seemed to transform into something of a watery thread, weaving between their bodies in a rhythmic pattern. Current started to run through their bodies, faster and faster until it felt like a raging river was coursing through where their hands interlocked, and a suction made it so that they couldn't let go of the grip on each other, even if they wanted to.

As for the place where their hands gripped each other, they were glowing with a light so radiant that it even hurt when they closed their eyes, and it seemed to burn at their skin. It felt as if the spell was trying to melt their flesh and connect their bloodstream to meld them into a singular being.

Tears streamed out of Chenelle's tightly shut eyes. She was filling with blood from her other companions, and power from the magic words - she couldn't handle it all - she was going to burst from all of the foreign matters running through her skin like an overfilled water balloon - it was all too much....

The five, as one, let out a single unearthly shriek that seemed to rattle the sky and earth as one. Then, abruptly, it stopped.

Collapsing to their knees, Sarah and the others panted heavily, Hayley felt her dress sticking to her body with sweat, and she felt some of it drip off of her nose like rain.

Then, she felt overly light, like gravity had ceased to exist, and she was simply floating in empty space. Cracking open an eye, she nearly screamed in surprise. She was floating, in a great white void. There was nothing there, except for absolute whiteness. She could not see Sarah, Gabriel, Robert or Chenelle, but she felt their grip on her palm. Hayley didn't care. The pain was over, and she relaxed in the nothingness of it all.

Suddenly, she stopped floating, and started being dragged to the ground. It was as if someone had suddenly put three-ton weights on her feet. Slowly, painstakingly, she was drug down, until she hit some sort of surface. She felt her hands being released, and she looked at her palms.

Oddly, they weren't bleeding anymore, or covered in welts or scabs. There were about fifteen slender brown marks running rampant across her hands, but nothing more. They were very sore, though. Rubbing at them, she looked around, and was relieved to find that everybody else was there too, and she wasn't alone.

"Where are we?" asked Robert, looking around the white void. Gabriel winced and closed her eyelids slightly. It was hurting her eyes to look at so much white nothingness.

"You're in the gap between dimensions," a familiar voice said smoothly. "I stopped you from going all the way back."

"Tom Riddle," hissed Sarah. "Can't you leave us be?" she screamed in the void. "Are you really that dense to see that we don't want to be your apprentices?"

"I can see that, but are you that dense to believe that I'd let you go that easily?" Tom countered, materializing in front of them, riding on Aquanus.

Robert swallowed. It would be a feat in itself to hold the Dark Lord off. It was going to be nearly impossible to hold the Dark Lord off and his three pet dragons.

"Attack," ordered Tom to Hunter and Carnash, who were on his sides. They charged. Chenelle swallowed as she looked at the dragon's flashy white teeth. She was looking at her doom.

Black lightning, smooth as water, leapt over their heads. At first, Gabriel though it was Voldemort chucking spells at them, but was soon put to rights when she saw the adder that had given them rides sinking it's teeth into Carnash's body. Carnash roared with pain and turned around to swipe at the adder with her razor-sharp claws. The basilisk swatted her claws away with a careless swing of its tail.

Hunter, however, was headed straight for Hayley. It bowed its head to try to headbutt her over, but Hayley, given extra strength by her fear, leapt about five feet into the air, consequently, landing on his back.

The dragon roared with frustration and tried to flail its arms back to hit Hayley. Hayley tried to dig her fingers under the scales of the dragon - they were as large as dinner plates - for a grip. But the scales were brittle and snapped off easily. Each time Hayley snapped a plate off of the dragon's back, it would scream with agony.

Meanwhile, the four still on the ground were watching, horrorstruck, at the scenes in front of them, until Tom sent a ball of black fire at them.

"Arrgh!" Sarah cried as it scorched her foot. "Let's get him!"

Tom sent another ball of Darkness at them, and this time Gabriel swung her sword at it - not unlike one would do to a baseball - and it bounced off of the sword and back at Tom Riddle, who had to throw up a shield quickly to diffuse it.

"Help me!" cried Hayley, still scrabbling for a grip on the dragon's back. Robert looked around, and saw the poker that Hayley had dropped laying in the middle of the void.

"Catch!" he yelled to her, throwing it like a javelin at her. Unfortunately for Hayley, it lodged in her leg. Wincing with the sudden pain, Hayley grabbed it, and looked for a place to smack the dragon with it.

After a few unsuccessful smacks, Hayley discovered that the dragon's scales, while brittle, were like armor. Then Hayley noticed that by trying to grab onto the dragon's scales, and accidentally snapping them off, there was a rather large patch of unprotected white skin in front of her eyes. Looking at the poker, she swallowed.

"God help me," she whispered, and drove the sharp end into the patch of skin. Hunter roared, flailed in the air, and screamed as black blood flowed freely from where the poker had pierced the back of its neck.

"Walzermiser!" came Sarah's voice from behind her. Whirling around, she saw that a ball of white magic had hit the back of the dragon, and now they were both freefalling through space. 

With the green dragon's last movements, he whirled around, grabbed Hayley, and flung her at the ground. She hit with a sickening thud and lay still.

Whipping around quickly, Hunter smacked Sarah in the face with its razor-sharp tail, sending her sprawling. Then Hunter hit the ground and breathed his last.

Green fire sprang around his body, and he evaporated into thin air, a dragon's death, if the death was not an honorable one.

Another loud thud sounded next to it. Whirling around, Chenelle saw Carnash the dragon exploding into pink flames. She had finally succumbed to the venom that had been circulating around her body, and fell to the ground dead. Next to her was a heavily breathing, badly burnt, basilisk.

Robert ran over to Hayley, and pulled her body off the ground. Her eyes were shut, and she was ghostly white. Quickly taking a pulse, he was relieved to find that she still had one, though it was very faint. In the meantime, Sarah had staggered to her feet, clutching her face.

"Sarah?" asked Chenelle. "Sarah? Are you all right? Sarah?" Sarah looked up from her hands, revealing a nasty gash that reached from the top of her left temple to her jawbone on he right side. Chenelle recoiled.

"Apart from the fact that my face has been torn apart, I'm fine!" she sobbed out, still keeping her sarcastic attitude about her.

Gabriel was still sending back Tom's fireballs with her sword. It was quite apparent that for the fact that Gabriel was certainly holding her own, the Dark Lord was getting the better of her.

"Getting tired, Gryffindor?" Tom yelled as he sent a fireball down at her. Gabriel blinked sweat from her eyes and swung her sword to send it back.

"You wish!" she cried back. She knew that she was practically lying, she was in reality, very tired, and her muscles were starting to burn, but she couldn't stop now.

Robert was still frantically trying to wake Hayley, when she finally did, and started to sob into her arms. Robert stared, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Hayley? What's the matter?" he asked. Hayley just shook her head.

"Oh, oh, oh! I'm a rotten, cowardly murderer!" she sobbed. "I just killed! Oh, oh, oh!"

"It was either you or him, Hayley. It wouldn't have done us any good if you had died!" Robert tried reasoning to her. Hayley would have none of it.

"That doesn't make any difference!" she cried. Robert gripped her shoulders and shook her roughly, until she stopped crying.

"Hayley Hufflepuff! Get a hold of yourself! You're becoming hysterical! He was an evil, deleterious dragon! Do you hear me?! A foul, vile creature of the Darkness!" he cried, nearly going into hysterics himself.

Hayley looked at him through red-rimmed eyes, sniffling. Finally, she nodded. "Right," she whispered. She stumbled to her feet, and Robert noticed that she had a nasty bout of bruises running down one side of her body. He winced when he saw them, but said nothing.

Gabriel had finally run out of energy. She let her guard down for one second, and Tom Riddle took the opportunity. The bolt of darkness hit her in the chest, knocking her over. Tom grinned.

"Looks like I win. Why don't you just make life easy for yourself and - OW!" he cried as a large chunk of wood hit him in the back of the head.

He looked down to see Chenelle, who had picked up the wood, and was waving it at him menacingly.

"How'd ya like some blood and vinegar, _Master_?" she spat at him. Tom curled his lips in an angry sneer.

"You again?!" he snarled at her, and raised his hand to send a black fireball at her, when something long, metal and snakelike wrapped him around his neck.

Gasping for breath, he yanked the thing away from his neck, and looked down to see Sarah.

"You like my little toy, no?" she asked, grinning slyly. Tom gritted his teeth, but before he could do anything, something hit him hard in the side of the head, and he finally fell off of Aquanus.

Gabriel's shield fell to the floor of the white void with a clatter. Robert, who had hurled it like a Frisbee, stood there panting.

Aquanus tried to rush to his master's aid, but was intercepted by a rather angry basilisk. Tom staggered to his feet, and looked at the five faces, so dead set against his own. He snarled confidently, but inside he was slightly nervous.

"You are in the debt of thousands of people, Tom Riddle," came Robert's voice, deep and low. "We have come to avenge those debts."

"I'm shaking in my boots," Tom said snottily. In reality, he was trembling, but ever so slightly, so that nobody noticed.

"Grasshopper have little sense but big mouth," Sarah quoted with a sly grin. Hayley couldn't stand it anymore.

"Eeeeyahhh!" she cried, swinging at Tom Riddle with her poker.

Something very strange happened then. Hayley's vision was so blurred by angry tears and sweat, that she missed him totally. But, the curved part of the poker caught the thin silver chain that held the pendant on Tom's neck, and broke the chain.

A moment frozen in time, the pendant twirled in the air, and seemed to hover there for about five minutes before falling to the ground of the gap between dimensions with a loud clang.

A loud cry from behind Tom made him turn around. Gabriel had staggered to her feet, and she vaulted herself at the pendant. The sword seemed to glow with all the power there was in the world, and with one swift stroke of the blade, the pendant was sliced in two.

Tom Riddle screamed with pain, as he started to dissipate into nothing. In about five minutes, the Dark Lord was gone. Vanquished from all dimensions....forever.

There was silence for a few moments. Then, pain jolted through Gabriel's body like a three thousand-volt shock. All five of their bodies spasmed several times, and started to glow an eerie purple glow, and the pendants that the five wore were starting to take effect. With a last glance at each other, and a final scream, they collapsed on the ground.

The spell of Yongher Meridian picked up again, now that the dark force holding the five in the gap was gone.

But the spell now only took along five empty shells. In the single stroke of Gabriel's sword, six lives were put to an end.

# # # 

Hogwarts was chattering over lunch and over the excitement over what was going to happen tomorrow: the rescheduled Quidditch game of Slytherin verses Gryffindors. Of course, both teams had balked considerably about being thrust into this situation only a week after they had gotten new players on their teams. But it was either this, the teachers said, or not play a game at all. It was getting close to the end of the year, and they wouldn't be able to give away the Quidditch cup otherwise.

Rosemary was in the middle of eating a sandwich, when there was a bright flash of red, green, yellow, blue and orangish in the center of the room.

Dropping the sandwich, Rosemary whirled around, like the rest of the school, and watched the colors right themselves amongst the floor, and they slowly fizzed into people. Gabriel, Robert, Sarah, Hayley, and some other unknown girl were lying in the center if the room.

Rosemary squealed with delight, as did several other people, and sprinted to where her friend lay.

Those people that did get up there, however, were not half as happy as they were when they realized that the foursome and the other girl were laying there motionless, and very mangled looking.

All four were covered in dirt, caked with blood, and covered in a horrible sheen of sweat, that made them look ethical, and not real, almost. Essex ran a finger gently down the large gash that Sarah had down her face, and winced.

But far worse than any of this, was the fact that none of them were breathing.

Frantically, Alanya grabbed Gabriel's wrist and felt for a pulse. Nothing. She tried again, this time grabbing the fold of skin by Gabriel's neck, where the pulse was a bit easier to detect. Still nothing.

Alex sat back on his heels, shaking his head. He spoke slowly and mechanically, as if he were in a daze.

"It's no use. They're dead," he said disbelievingly. "They're....dead."

# # #

Something warm and slightly damp settled on Robert's head. He was about to get up, but then then events of the past....well, when he was last conscious sprang into his head. He thought that it might be best to pretend he was still out cold before he could act.

"Oh, oh dear, do you think they'll be all right?"

"Come off it, Helga. They're already dead. What could possibly happen to them?"

That jolted Robert up in a second. He came face to face with four people who were looking placidly back at him.

The first was a stout; plump woman with cheeks the exact color of perfectly toasted marshmallows. Her brown eyes were soft and sparkly, and they crinkled kindly at the edges with age. Her brown hair was done up in a very soft-looking pouf, and she wore a pale yellow robe.

The second was a female that was quite a bit skinner and more severe-looking than her other counterpart. She had deep blue eyes the color of Robert's own, and her hair, which was jet black, was drawn back in a tight ponytail. A slight smile turned her lips up slightly, and with her right hand, she adjusted a pair of glasses. She was in a robe the color of a perfect summer sky.

The first of the males had brown eyes that darted smartly around the room, and his chin was set at a jaunty angle, in a swaggering, gallant look. His hair was of a light blonde, and was cut close to his head in an old-fashioned crop. In his right hand he sported a shiny blade, studded with rubies the size of eggs, almost. Clad in a deep maroon robe, he flashed a dashing smile at Robert, which he timidly returned.

Lastly, there was a man, with eyes of a deep green, so deep that they were almost black darted around the room sharply, as if looking for an exit. He had long, pale fingers that drummed up against a table, and he had this aura around him that made you believe that he was rather cold and calculating. He had a massive headful of black hair that was curly, almost, and he was wearing a robe in the color of a deep evergreen forest. Around his neck was draped a cobra, black with dusty maroon markings.

"I told you nothing was wrong," said the male with the snake around his neck. The old woman that had the yellow robe on rolled her eyes.

"You think you know everything, Salazar," she said, a bit huffily. Robert paled, and backed up a little bit. Salazar?

"I know who you are!" he finally blurted out. "You're...you're Salazar Slytherin, aren't you?" he asked. Salazar raised an eyebrow.

"The lad has half the smarts of a bar of soap. I'm impressed," he said sarcastically. Robert winced. Now he knew where Sarah got it from.

"Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw? But....but you're all...all dead.." he trailed off. Rowena raised an eyebrow.

"My dear boy, look at yourself," she said coolly. Robert did, slowly, afraid of what he might find.

He was startled to find that he was clad in black robes, there was no sign of wounds anywhere on him, and he felt fine. But even more surprising then this, was the fact that he was translucent, almost.

"Oh my God...." he whispered. "Am I dead, too?" 

"It sure looks that way, doesn't it?" Salazar said, running a finger down his snake's back, and hissing to it.

"Where's everybody else? Gabriel...Chenelle..?" he asked, still too stunned to put a proper sentence together.

"In the other room," came the deep rumble of Godric Gryffindor. There was a sudden smashing noise, and a shout.

"I can't be dead!" came the shrill voice of Sarah. "I haven't even really lived yet!"

Robert sighed. "Yep. That's Sarah, all right." He lurched to his feet, and began crookedly walking to the door, of the house that they were in.

Beyond the door was a room with a couple of couches in it, a soft rug, a beautifully carved mantle, and a bed. All of which was in pastels, or white. It was a very airy, light feeling place. On the floor, however, was a broken vase.

"She lost her temper," came the voice of Chenelle, who was sitting on a couch, pointing to Sarah. Sarah just gave her a half smirk and flopped back on her couch. Robert noted that they too were also in black robes, and seemingly dressed as normal.

"Where are we?" came the forlorn voice of Hayley, looking positively worn out. The founders of Hogwarts had come in after them, and Godric gave them a half-smile.

"Heart strengthens the soul," he began.

"Blood strengthens the spell," Salazar intervened.

"Up - as is," Rowena commented smartly.

"Then, I will return as well," Helga finished softly.

There was silence for a moment, before Sarah's jaw dropped, and she ran to the window and flung the curtain away.

"You mean this....this is Castle Sapius?!" she cried. "But...but..." she chattered on, looking at the landscape, which was complete with rolling fields, colorful flowers and sunny skies.

Helga gave a motherly chuckle. "You five relieved the evil, followed the clues, and fulfilled your destiny. You saved two worlds from evil, yours, and this one. Quite an accomplishment for one of only fourteen years, Sarah." 

Sarah made a face. "This is incredibly selfish sounding of me, but at the cost of our own lives, we relieved the evil!" she spat.

Godric raised his eyebrows. "Look, Salazar. It's someone that's related to you that actually knows when she's being selfish. Your bloodline has hope yet."

"So, where are we, exactly?" asked Hayley again, not wanting Salazar and Godric to get into a pointless squabble. "Is this Heaven?"

"No," said Rowena flatly. Chenelle's eyes bulged.

"Then is this..."

"No, dearest. This isn't Hell either," Helga interrupted her.

"Then where are we?" asked Robert. Godric shook his head.

"You're in the dimension that you came from. You know, the one that Tom Riddle made?" 

Jaws dropped all around. Finally, Sarah let out an aggravated screech.

"All that work to get away from here, and now we're here again!" she cried angrily. Rowena pushed her glasses up her nose.

"Look. You're not going to be here forever. The Ones Above have given you a choice."

Robert raised an eyebrow. "Who are the Ones Above?" he asked. Helga waved an impatient hand.

"No time for questions. You have a choice. One, you will come up Above with us, or two, you will go back to where you came from."

There was silence again. 

"You mean that we can go back along the living, if we want to? Isn't that impossible?" Chenelle asked. Godric shook his head.

"The Ones Above can do whatever they want. Nothing is impossible to them; they just keep it the same to keep the mortals happy. It's not very often that they give people a second chance at life, but they can."

"But if you choose to go back to the living," Salazar warned, "you won't remember meeting us. You're memory will be erased to the point when you just died."

Sarah shrugged. "I'm all for returning, no offence to you guys or anything. What about the rest of ya's?" she asked her friends. Robert nodded.

"I haven't lived long enough yet."

"I haven't even gotten to enjoy life yet," Chenelle said ruefully.

"I haven't been a wizard long enough yet," Gabriel agreed.

"I just want to see the looks on everybody's face when we come back," Hayley said, grinning.

Helga nodded, smiling back. "That's m'girl. We were hoping that you would choose to go back to the mortals, anyway."

"Just a couple of other tidbits; Robert, your parents send their love, Gabriel, so do yours, Hayley, your Aunt Michelle says hi, and Sarah, your Grandparents say that they're very proud of you. I think that that's it," Rowena finished, grinning at the looks of amazement on their faces.

"You know Mum and Dad?" Gabriel said, voice cracking slightly.

"Don't let that sway your decision. Your parents want you to live a full life also, and they don't want you to squander the second chance that the Ones Above are giving you," Helga said.

Salazar adopted his most mysterious voice. "The Ballad of the Underworld has been completed."

"What?" Robert asked.

"I said, The Ballad of the Underworld has been completed. That's all I'm saying."

Sarah wrinkled her nose. "Salazar, you're an angel, right?" she asked.

Salazar looked at her oddly, while stroking the snake on his shoulder. "In technical terms, yes."

"How did you, um..."

"Become one? Are you asking why I'm not rotting away in Hell because of all the things I've done to Muggles and Mudbloods?" he asked bluntly.

"Well....yes."

Salazar gave a slight snicker. "So much you don't know....there's just so much."

"Don't tease, Salazar," Helga reprimanded him. Salazar just shook his head, still grinning. 

Godric shook his head. "Oh wait. You'll be needing these," he said offhandedly, tossing them each something.

It was their wands.

They all nearly squealed in happiness, that is, except for Chenelle, who still didn't have one. Helga smiled kindly at her and threw her a wand, also.

"That was your mother's wand. Maple. Dragon heartstring and unicorn hair. Good for Transfigurations. I think about fifteen inches. Sound good?"

Chenelle looked at the wand shaft, nearly speechless. "Thank you," she whispered. Helga waved her arm, dismissing the expression of gratitude. 

"Just promise me you'll use it," she said. She then looked at her three counterparts.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Ready," Rowena, Salazar and Godric said at once. They all looked at the ceiling of the castle, and started mumbling some words to the Ones Above.

There was a gentle, powdery explosion in front of Gabriel's eyelids. She then felt pleasant warmth spread through her body, and she smiled. This was much better than Yongher Meridian. With that thought, she blacked out.

# # #

The bodies of Sarah, Gabriel, Hayley, Robert and Chenelle had been taken to the infirmary, for burial later on. For now, though, the Quidditch games were beginning to start, with a very depressed attitude. The stands were full, although, because everybody was trying to keep their minds off of what had just happened.

Then corpses of the four lay still and lifeless on the beds. Then Chenelle's finger twitched. Gabriel heaved in a breath, setting her organs to work again. Hayley flexed her legs, as Robert's eyelids flickered open. Sarah drug herself to a sitting position.

"We're back," she whispered, though none of the others were able to understand her, since her throat was so dry.

"What happened? Did we die or something?" asked Hayley, trying to remember something, though she couldn't remember what.

"I know. I feel like I've missed something. Something really important," Robert said, rubbing his temples. "What about you, Chenelle?"

Chenelle shook her head. "Not Chenelle. My name isn't Chenelle," she said decisively. "Don't call me that."

"Then what is your name?" inquired Gabriel. Chenelle sat up and looked off into the distance.

"Well, once upon a time, I suppose, I was known as Samantha Bronxton. I guess that's my name now," Chenelle/Samantha said.

"What about your middle name?" asked Hayley. Samantha wrinkled her nose.

"I don't think I had one. If I did, I don't remember it."

"I think you should make it Chenelle," Robert said, seeing what Hayley had been getting at. "So you'll never forget what happened, and so it won't be like a bad dream. You'd remember it forever."

Samantha smiled crookedly. "I suppose that I shouldn't want to forget it? Oh, alright, Chenelle it is, then."

"Samantha Chenelle Bronxton. It has a ring to it, I guess," Sarah said, shrugging. "Well, let's go to the Great Hall. We can sort things out there."

After the five minute lurch to the Great Hall (normally, it would have taken about half a minute to get there, but they were still kind of weak from their death and revival), they were amazed, and a bit angered to find it deserted.

"All of that walking for nothing?!" Gabriel said, irate. The others didn't pay much attention, but went over to the leftovers of lunch, and started to inhale the food a s if they had never seen it before.

"That hits the spot," Sarah sighed after downing an entire pitcher of ice water without stopping.

"I wonder where everyone is," Robert mused between bites of a turkey sandwich.

"And I wonder why nobody picked up lunch," Hayley said, agreeing.

"Who really _cares_?" asked Samantha. "At least it's here to eat."

After a few minutes of shoving food down their throats, Gabriel noted a piece of scrap paper lying crumpled on the floor.

Hey Patil, (it read),

Are you going to be at the Quidditch game today? I know that Quidditch is one of the most pointless things on Earth to spend your time on, but it is the rematch of Gryffindor verses Slytherin, and I'm going. Do you think that we have half a chance with Dean as our Keeper? Not that he's that bad, but...he's no Oliver Wood or Gabriel Gryffindor.

Ugh. I can't believe that Snape had half of the nerve to put me with Vincent Crabbe. He is such a git. 'Can't even count to fifteen without screwing up. How are you doing with that Pansy Parkinson character? You don't look too happy, but...who can blame you? But the one good thing about these Slytherin-Gryffindor partnerships is that they put Malfoy with Harry. You should look at them argue. It's so funny!

-Lavander

There was no date on the paper, but it didn't look that old. Gabriel put down the letter and smoothed it out before calling to her counterparts.

"I think that there is a Quidditch game today, the rematch of the Gryffindor verses Slytherin," she said.

Sarah put down the second pitcher of water she was chugging with a loud clunk. "D'you think that they've started?" she asked frantically. 

Gabriel shrugged. "I have no idea, they might've."

Downing the rest of the pitcher, Sarah wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. "Let's go find out then," she said with a sly wink in Gabriel's direction. "Unless you're scared," she taunted. 

Gabriel sneered elegantly. "Yah, you wish!" 

With that, Gabriel and Sarah went tromping off down the halls, poking playfully at each other with mock insults. The three left behind stared after them.

"What do we do?" asked Samantha. Robert winked at her.

"We go and get seats. Come on, Hayley and Sam."

# # #

"Come on, team. We can do it," Fred said, looking a little beaten already, though the game hadn't started yet.

"We're perfectly competent of the game, more so then the Slimy Slithering Serpents in the other room," George finished for his twin, coaxing a slight grin out of a few people. Nobody really felt like playing Quidditch.

"You know, this doesn't seem right," Alicia Spinnet said morosely. "Should we really be playing Quidditch right now? Isn't this like, wrong somehow?"

Harry sighed. "Well, I don't think that Gabriel would want us moping over her. She'd rather us beat Slytherin for her."

There was an agreeing shuffle and mummer that ran through the room. "She could be watching over us right now..." Angelina Johnson started dreamily, when she was interrupted.

"Or she could be standing behind you right now, wondering why you all aren't dressed," came a smooth, familiar voice.

George gaped. "Back from the dead to play a Quidditch game!" he croaked out. Gabriel grinned.

"That's right, I guess. Well, where's my broom at?" she asked. Dean Thomas looked up at her nervously, and handed her the broom timidly.

"Are - are you really alive?" he asked, still staring at her. Gabriel looked around at the people that were looking back at her.

"Oh, come off it. Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it. Now, where's my robes so I can play?" she asked irritably, getting tired of having people staring at her.

Fred grinned and clapped a hand over Gabriel's back. "That's the Gabriel we know!" he roared, new energy seemingly flowing through his body. "The robes are in the fourth locker to the left. Hurry!"

Gabriel grinned back, and hastened to oblige.

# # #

The Slytherin team was getting dressed lethargically in the locker room. Sprite even seemed depressed. It flew around slowly and its antennae drooped sadly.

There was a rattle at the doorknob, as if someone was trying to get in, but the door was locked. The figure figured that out, and rapped on the door loudly.

"Interviews at halftime or after the game!" Marcus Flint yelled at the tightly bolted door. The knocking came again, except for this time, it was louder.

"Team members only!" Flint yelled again, becoming angrier at this incessant knocker-of -the-door.

Now the knocking had turned into practically beating at the door. Draco looked up. Who wanted to talk to the Quidditch team that badly?

"Open the Goddamn door, before I bust it in!" cried a familiar voice, though nobody could exactly put a finger on it.

"Who are you?" asked Flint, his anger turning into interest. There was an aggravated sigh.

"I am the one that goes without a name," the voice yelled through the door, dripping with sarcasm.

"You'll tell me your name, or you won't get in!" Flint yelled, becoming angry again. He hated riddles.

"Mystery Woman," yelled the voice, matching the volume of Flint's own.

"No women allowed!" roared Flint, seriously aggravated now. There was another exasperated sigh.

"That didn't stop you from choosing me as your Beater, the first female Slytherin player in a century! I was one of the reasons that the first Gryffindor-Slytherin game was canceled, in fact, my last name is Slytherin, and if you don't know who I am now, you need your head examined!"

"Slytherin? _Sarah_ Slytherin?!" cried Flint, his voice about an octave higher than it normally was.

The door was banged on one more time and it few off of its hinges. There stood Sarah Slytherin, and when the door hit the ground, a cloud of dust was sent up about her, making it look like a movie scene.

"That's right! Now, where's my robes?" she asked, grinning largely at the look of repulsed amazement that was written all over their faces.

Draco pointed to the locker three paces to the left of him. Sprite the butterfly flew around in a fast circle, landing in Sarah's hair, its favorite place.

Sarah sniggered at Draco, who had his mouth hanging wide open. "You didn't think that you'd get rid of me that easily, did you?"

"Well....Not really...." he stuttered, trying to think of a good answer.

"Good," Sarah said, cutting him off.

# # #

Lee Jordan was commentary, as normal, and he was babbling on something about the weather, the statistics of the game, and such, but nobody was really listening.

Until, that was, Hayley, Robert and Samantha came up into the commentary box. Then the crowd was overtaken by a bout of stuttering by Lee, and then finally a scream and running footsteps. The crowd looked up with interest. Was this some kind of skit?

"Err, looks like we've scared off Lee.....Sorry Lee..." came a familiar voice over the loudspeaker.

"No matter. We can commentate now! I'm Robert Ravenclaw, this is Hayley Hufflepuff, and over here is Samantha Bronxton. We're back from the dead to commentate for this fine...fine game!" he said, falling over with laughter from his own bad joke.

Hayley looked at him. "Yeah. Right, then. Hello everybody!" she called, waving at the people, who were now clambering over to get a good look at the press box. Those who did, related the story back to those that couldn't get a good look, and soon the entire school, professors included, were silent with amazement.

"But you're _dead_!" came a random voice. Samantha grabbed the mike from Hayley.

"Do we look like we're dead?" she asked.

"But...but...." several voices chanted. Rosemary, Essex, Alanya and Alex were struck completely dumb with amazement.

"Oh look," Samantha said, changing the subject. "Here come the teams!" she called.

With that, the school clattered over benches and shoved through each other to see if Gabriel and Sarah were there too. There was more confused talking as they realized that they were there also.

Gabriel, for one, was grinning at all of the people that pointed and screamed in her direction, Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw alike. Tilting her head up to the sky, she felt the sun caress her face and arms. It was wonderful. The grass crunched softly under her feet, and a gentle breeze was blowing. If ever Heaven made a day, Gabriel thought, it would be today. Sarah waved at her from the Slytherin team, and Gabriel winked back.

"Captains!" Madam Hooch shouted. Fred and George pushed Gabriel forward. 

"Since it's your first deathday, you can have the honors of being Captain for a day," Fred sniggered. Gabriel rolled her eyes.

"Whatever." When she got up there, she was pleased to see that Sarah was there waiting for her, not Marcus Flint. Sarah winked.

"We should die more often. I like all of this complementary stuff I get for coming back to life," she said. Gabriel rolled her eyes.

"Once is enough for me, thank you," she replied. Madam Hooch intervened before more conversation could be said.

"Captains, shake!" she ordered, as if she were talking to a pair of dogs. Gabriel held out a hand, and Sarah shook it.

"You know that I'm going to have to beat you like the dog you are, Gabriel," Sarah said, smiling. Gabriel just sighed.

The loudspeakers blared with Hayley's voice, the hum of the crowd was louder and friendlier than ever, the sky was cloudless, and the world was perfect, for now.

"Whatever you say, Snake Girl," she replied softly. Sarah grinned and dropped Gabriel's hand, and gave her a short nod before retreating into the cloud of green uniforms.

"Mount your brooms!" Madam Hooch bellowed.

Sarah clambered onto her broom, looking at the faces of grim determination on her fellow teammate's faces. She giggled inwardly. She would never admit it right now, but she really didn't care if they won or lost. She had all ready had her major battle for her lifetime, and that was enough for her. But, for now, she put on her best game face, and kicked her broom into the air.

There was a game to be won.

# # #

_And so 'twixt these white walls I write,_

Once again under the rule of the Good King,

The trees do sprout as the hills roll,

Forever evergreen. 

The battle was won and lost,

Dove, Snake Eagle Lion and Badger,

Through the fabric of time they came,

To defeat the dragon and befriend the adder.

The seasons may come and go,

Wood, shield, sword, poker and chain,

The scars of combat might be forever gone,

But the legend shall remain.

The story started as all others, and shall end the same,

The Dark is powerful, put the Light will always prevail,

With all the stories told,

Here ends this tale.

-(Exert from the last page of The Ballad of the Underworld)

THE END

Author's Note: I bet for a fact that you never expected to see 'The End' tacked on this story, huh? Well, it's over (finally!) but I think it might be a little bit before I write another story. I want to take a break and read some of the other author's work for a change! Ick. Well, when I write another story, I can assure you wholeheartedly that it will NOT have four main characters in it! (Although I suggest that every author should write something with more than one main character at least once! It's a rather enthralling experience....) Well, I hoped you enjoyed this, and review! My heart goes out to all of you nice people who have stuck with me and reviewed this entire thing from beginning to end! Signing off until inspiration hits me again....

~Moxie ^_^

Disclaimer: You know by now what's mine and what isn't! Kapeesh? Kapeesh. ^_~


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